


Tulips in the Garden

by huevoplatano



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Betrayal, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hand Jobs, Incest, Kissing, Rape/Non-con Elements, Secret Relationship, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-21 20:52:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huevoplatano/pseuds/huevoplatano
Summary: What starts off as an innocent study session turns into something Morticia doesn't expect as Rick reveals his true intentions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> look at that, a whole new fic! this fic is actually a joint effort between me and Toast (@moldyeggs on twitter) who is THE MOST AMAZING PERSON EVER when it comes to discussing fic ideas. you have them to thank for like 90% of the content in here (i just write it out lol) :D 
> 
> anyway, this is a pretty big project we had in mind, so hopefully i can get my ass in gear and keep it up to write it, because boy. do we have a lot of things in store for this fic ;)
> 
> as usual, i will add tags as i go along so as not to spoil anything major (and bc things are always subject to change)

As the paper was placed down in front of her, Morticia could already feel her stomach churning at the sight of the large red F written next to her name in the corner. Not that this should have come as a surprise seeing as she barely studied for this test, but to write it so big and in red made it seem to hit her with all the more impact as she stared at her failure.

Picking at her paper tentatively as though the big red F would bite her if she touched it, Morticia lifted her test up to view all the smaller red X's next to her answers. Some of them she hadn't even bothered to answer, and one she even tried to be cheeky with and left a smiley face next to, something which teacher Rick obviously wasn't amused by, and wrote out next to it in his curvy handwriting, _'This is not playtime, Miss Smith.'_ Morticia's cheeks reddened at the sight of it, thinking surely he would at least get a smile out of that one, but she knew that wouldn't gain her any points. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Tucking her paper into her notebook so nobody around her could see the huge red F, Morticia stared up at teacher Rick as he stood leaning over his desk, silent as he waited for everyone to look over their tests before he stood up straight again. When he spoke, his voice was hardly holding back his annoyance. "Obviously, some of you haven't been studying, judging from the fact over half of you failed this test."

The blatant statement caused most of the class to freeze and an uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Morticia was sure she could feel the tension in the air in that moment, but sat waiting for him to continue, hoping he wouldn't single any of them out and embarrass them, as he was prone to do from time to time, depending on what kind of mood he was in.

"Of course, some teachers would take pity on you and allow a makeup test, or some kind of waver in order to boost the overall class score, but--" He paused for a moment to clear his throat before glaring over at a random Morty in the corner who flinched under his gaze and continued speaking. "I don't give a damn about class average. Everybody knows that's _your_ fault, not mine. If you want to flunk out and end up on the streets, by all means, keep failing your tests and goofing off after classes." He then settled down at his desk and began to flip through a pile of papers after turning his gaze away from the class and waving them off with the back of his hand. "Take the rest of the class to study."

It was then silent, or almost silent, as the only sounds heard then were of rustling paper and a few Mortys mumbling to each other. Morticia decided it would be better not to get on his bad side when teacher Rick was obviously in a bad mood right now and opened her notebook to a page of horribly scribbled notes she'd written over the past few days. Most of it was incomplete nonsense with random doodles in the margins as she wasn't the best at paying attention in class, but she took the moment she wasn't being lectured at to push her glasses up and at least attempt at studying for once. She tried filling in the empty spaces of her notes with more coherent sentences and looked up in her textbook for definitions and the like. You know. _Studying_.

Ten minutes passed by all too fast and the bell rang out above them, signaling that they could go home for the day. Morticia didn't waste a second before packing her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder, all the while scrambling away from her desk. Despite being stationed on the Citadel, the academy functioned like any other school, and since it was Friday, they had the weekend to look forward to. Or, would have looked forward to, if Morticia didn't have the lingering giant red F hanging over her head like a storm cloud. Sheesh, how the fuck was she going to make that one up? This was her second failure in four weeks. It wasn't helping her average any if she kept failing like this.

"How'd you do on the test?" A familiar voice hummed behind her and Morticia turned to see an unassuming Morty sidling his way up to her. To anyone else, he would have looked just like the others, but Morticia had been hanging out with him long enough to be able to tell him apart from the rest. Well, the fact that his eyes were green sort of helped too, as most Mortys had brown eyes. But, she pretended she could easily tell him apart just from his voice and movements.

At his question, her posture fell and she downcast her gaze to her socks instead. Just the mention of the test put her back in a sad mood. "Not...well..." Before blush coated her cheeks.

"Aww, don't worry about it. I know what Rick says can be a bit...much, but you'll do better next time." He pat her back in reassurance as they walked toward the doorway.

Morticia forced a laugh at his words. Morty would say anything to make her feel better, she knew, but she wasn't so sure, with two F's now from the past two tests, it didn't make her feel all that confident she was going to magically turn this around. After all, most of what she did when she went to her dorm was read comic books or play video games all night. She didn't like studying, and the times when she did manage to force herself to sit down and read anything, she only read a couple of paragraphs of her textbook before the information was only becoming words she was merely reading and not absorbing what those words were even saying at that point. "I-I don't know..."

"Miss Smith."

The sound of Teacher’s voice behind them made Morticia seize up and she almost squeaked out at the sound of her name being called, especially so suddenly like that and with Teacher’s already annoyed tone to his voice, it made it sound like he was angry with her. It made her jump, but she turned as soon as he called to her and clutched at the backpack strap as she turned to face Teacher who was staring at her. "Y-yes?" Teacher Rick always had a bad habit of making her incredibly nervous, even if he wasn't outright yelling at her, or even talking down to her, just the way he addressed her intimidated her.

"Do you have a moment? I'd like to speak with you." He took a moment to glance at Morty who still stood next to her. "Alone, if you please."

Morticia turned to Morty who only shrugged, but waved her off before leaving with, "Meet you outside then." And she was alone with him.

Without everyone else here in the classroom, it was eerily quiet, even more so when he forced them to study for the last ten minutes of class. At least then, there was an occasional shuffle of papers, and she could hear the movements of the other Mortys around her--even their breathing, but this was making her nervous as she turned to face him again and he took a stack of papers next to him before stacking them neatly next to him. His desk was always so neat, she noticed, but tried not to focus on that as she stood there sweating and wondering why he'd called her out like this.

He finally turned his attention to her after what felt like a long awkward bout of silence before linking his fingers together and letting out a loud sigh. "You've failed the past two tests we've had, Miss Smith."

Her cheeks flared at the blatant fact displayed in front of her. She could only nod weakly in acceptance and embarrassment.

"With grades like those, you really don't have much hope of passing the semester. The academy isn't exactly known for repeating classes. Once a Morty shows they aren't willing to put up the effort, they get kicked out pretty quick."

All of his blatant facts were sinking deeper and deeper until Morticia felt like a whole weight had fallen into the pit of her stomach. She only stood there, wallowing in embarrassment at the fact she hadn't even bothered to study much for those tests to begin with, and that she'd mostly been goofing off playing video games. Now, here he was telling her she was about to get kicked out, because she had to go and be lazy, but really, she had no one to blame but herself for that one.

"I-I..." She tried to think of something to say, but there was no excuse for this. If he had asked her flat out if she hadn't bothered to study, she would have crumbled under his gaze alone and told him the truth. Her cheeks only burned hotter at the thought of getting kicked out of the academy after being here for only one semester. What a joke she'd be.

"However."

She lifted her face at the word, at whatever it was he was about to say that would no doubt contradict what he'd just said.

"I know you've been at the daycare for over six months as well. Having to come straight here can't be an easy adjustment for you." His eyes lidded only slightly, but Morticia didn't break her gaze from him either. "I could tutor you, if you are having trouble."

Morticia could feel her throat tighten at the proposal, and had to look away from him down at her knuckles, which had turned white in the time she spent squeezing her backpack strap. She didn't know what to say, and stood fumbling over her words for a good few seconds before actually opening her mouth and forming a coherent sentence. "I-I--thank you for the--for the offer, b-but, is that really fair?"

He gave her a questioning look. "Fair?"

"T-to the other Mortys, I mean." Her cheeks gushed even more at the mention of it. "Th-they get--um--offers like that too, right?"

He shrugged. "We do have a tutoring center here, but it's true I don't offer to tutor myself that often. But." He leaned back in his chair then, causing it to squeak as he did so. "I'm giving you the opportunity, because your situation is unique from these other Mortys. Most of them wanted to come to the academy and study here, but you didn't really have that choice, did you? Sometimes certain situations require certain levels of help as well."

Morticia twiddled her fingers and stared down at her shoes. It still felt like she was getting some kind of special offer here--and really, he just admitted she was, but she wasn't sure if it was fair of her to do this. After all, failing her tests had been her fault. It was her fault she chose to play video games and read manga instead of studying. It was her fault she couldn't sit down for more than ten minutes and read more than one paragraph at a time. She didn't deserve special treatment like this just because she was a fuck up.

"U-um..." Still, she wasn't sure what to say, or what to do. It was awfully nice of teacher Rick to do this for her, but she felt bad.

He finally leaned forward back on his desk with his chin rested in his palms. "Miss Smith, if it makes you uncomfortable, you don't have to, but I implore you--please consider it. It's okay to struggle, especially if you can't focus. I can help with that. It would sadden me to see you kicked out of the academy is all."

That was something she never expected to hear from her teacher. In the entire semester Morticia had spent here (which was only about two months), she always thought teacher Rick was a stone-cold asshole with no patience for anything, but to hear him say things like this--she felt her cheeks flush at the sound of it. It was almost like he genuinely cared for her. Nobody had really given a damn about anything like that since she'd come to this god-awful place, but--it was so weird to be hearing someone so concerned for her grades that they were willing to give her private tutoring for it.

And honestly, she would be stupid not to take that kind of help, if it was being offered to her.

She nodded, still blushing, still feeling as though she didn't deserve this in the slightest, when she hadn't at all bothered to even help herself, but if teacher Rick wanted to help her, maybe that would be for the best. "O-okay..." Maybe Morticia was just the type of person who struggled with school work and needed extra help.

And then he smiled. "I'm very happy to hear that. Feel free to stop by after class any day of the week. I'm always here. But, for now, enjoy the weekend. Try not to stress out about the tests."

Morticia nodded, her face hot, her hands shaking as she clutched her backpack and she began to back from the room. "O-okay, I-I'll come by Monday then..." And it felt weird to say that. It felt weird to actually do something after school than just resign herself to her dorm room where she would inevitably sit on her ass for hours on end and play video games until her legs were sore from being crossed for so long in front of the tv while her roommate yelled from across the room asking what kind of pizza did she want.

Teacher Rick gave her a final, softer smile. "See you then, Miss Smith." Before she hurriedly turned and raced from the room while trying not to make it seem like she was trying to get the fuck out of the room.

Morty was waiting for her down the hall, slumped up against the wall. His face brightened up when he saw her and he pushed himself off the wall, pulling up his backpack that was only hung on by one strap and he gave her a toothy smile. "So, what'd the old man want?"

Morticia blushed again and looked down at the tiled flooring instead of at his face as they walked side by side down the hall. "O-oh, he just--um, called me out about my bad grades, haha..."

Morty let out an exasperated sigh. "What an ass. H-he should leave you alone to handle it yourself. You know what you're doing."

Morty was always quick to jump to her defense, but Morticia couldn't really agree with him on something like this--especially considering it was her fault. And really, teacher Rick was being way too giving and too nice to her to let her do something as come after class for tutoring like that. She really didn't deserve it.

"H-he can kind of--I-I don't know, be nice when he wants to be, you know?"

Morty rolled his eyes as they came to a staircase and descended. "Nice? I've seen swarms of bees nicer than him."

Morticia snorted as they came to the bottom of the stairs and rounded a corner. "Aw, come on, he's like a--a pineapple."

"A _pineapple_?"

"Hard and spiky on the outside, not too appealing, but nice and tangy on the inside. Actually, don't you think t-teacher is kind of handsome too?"

Morty choked on nothing, almost doubling over at her words and she laughed at him. " _What_?!"

Morticia couldn't help but laugh at his reaction as he stared at her in absolute disgust. "Oh my god, I'm just kidding!" Now she was doubled over, laughing at him.

"Christ, Morti, don't say creepy shit like that!"

"I'm sorry! It was worth it for y-your reaction though." She couldn't help but giggle at him as he was obviously still flustered long after they'd crossed the threshold of the double doors to the entranceway and were passing the courtyard.

"Next week is botany." Morty randomly brought it up, as though trying to bring up any other subject to dispel Morticia's joke about Rick. "How's your take home flower doing?"

"Uhhh..." Morticia thought to the lone little violet she'd been tasked with taking home for botany class and how she'd set it up in her window for sunshine, but also forgot to water it twice last week. "It's...doing."

"Doing?"

She shook her head. "Well, it's not dead yet."

He spat out a laugh. "That's good, I guess? Mine's doing okay. I'm pretty confident I'm going to get an A anyway. Did you name your flower?"

She shrugged. "I-I guess Fred or something."

"Fred... Right."

Morticia shrugged. "Don't judge. After all, I-I just made it up."

Morty spat out another laugh as they crossed the courtyard, passing by a crowd of Mortys who were playing hacky sack, another crowd who looked to be huddled over each other and trading Pokemon. Morticia eyed them in particular, wishing she were close enough to see which ones they were playing with, and wishing she could be in on the action to trade with them as well. All she wanted to do right now was head home and play video games all weekend and worry about school stuff next Monday. Grinding her own pokemon or going on a raid mission sounded sooo good right now.

"Hey." She gripped Morty by the sleeve, causing him to stop in his tracks and stare at her, raising his eyebrow. "You wanna come over tonight and play video games?"

His eyes lit up again, and he seemed to be holding back the urge to smile really, really big, but she could see the soft red burning on his cheeks. "S-sure, yeah!"

Morticia smiled back.


	2. Chapter 2

"It doesn't look good."

Morticia perked up at Morty's comment as she set her bag down next to her bed. When she looked up, he was staring at the spot in her window--or more specifically, at the violet she'd placed in her window. One look at the poor little flower and any person could tell it wasn't doing too well. It hadn't wilted yet, but there were brown spots beginning to show, a clear sign it was heading that way any day now.

"Oh." Moving over to the little watering pot she'd set next to it, Morticia noticed how dry the soil was as well and decided to water it a little. "Yeah, I sometimes forget to water it, ehe."

Morty shook his head as she sprinkled water on the petals. "Sometimes watering isn't enough. Don't you sing to it?"

She stopped, pulling back the can and staring at him. "Uh, n-no?"

"I sing to mine! And it's doing pretty good. Sometimes if you like--blow air on it too, the stem will get stronger. But you can't do it so hard that it just breaks. I put mine across from the fan so it gets beat up."

Giggling, Morticia set the can back down next to it, watching as the soil got all mushy in the pot as the water trickled to the bottom. "It probably w-won't do it much good now, you know?"

Morty shrugged. "Maybe not, but it's worth the try." He walked over toward the violet and gently touched one of the petals with the pads of his fingers. "At least it's still soft. It hasn't gone completely dry."

Morticia shrugged back. "Come on, Roomie made pizza. Let's play Mario Kart or something."

Roomie was pretty much like any other Morty given the fact he loved playing video games about as much as Morticia did (but more to the point he actually ditched class to do it), and it wasn't long before the three of them were stationed at the couch, plopped down on a cushion with a controller in hand and yelling at each other about Mario Kart.

"I WAS IN FIRST!" Morticia couldn't help but get competitive when it came to stuff like this and felt the heat gush on her face as a blue shell crashed her straight out of first place when Roomie sailed by her. Jamming her fingers on the buttons as though that would make her character recover any faster, Morticia turned her whole body when she jerked the controller sideways, trying to will the action in front of her to happen as she was desperately pounding the buttons one after another.

Roomie gave a laugh, one that almost made her want to stand up off the couch and slam the controller down on the floor like a sore loser as he drove over the finish line, taking first place from her.

"DAMMIT, YOU CHEATED!"

Morty quietly laughed as he sauntered by after Morticia finally recovered and got second place, Morty following and catching sixth place. "I-I'm pretty bad at these types of games..."

But Morticia was pointing her finger at Roomie, not paying Morty any mind. "Rematch! We gotta do a rematch and none of that bullsh-shit cheating!"

He shrugged, the smile he gave showing off his braces. "Sounds like something a _looooooser_ would say, but okay."

The heat returned to her cheeks at the words, but she settled back down in her seat, taking a deep breath to calm herself and focus. God, these types of things always brought out the absolute worst in her competitive nature. If only she cared this much about school work and making good grades--hell, she'd be a grade A student, then.

Trying not to think of school at a time like this, Morticia blinked away the thoughts as Roomie selected another stage, one with a lot of fire and loops in it--her _favorite_. He shot her a grin, one she ignored, because he knew she absolutely hated the fire stages, and had a bad habit of spamming the controller when she panicked, but whatever. She would deal with it.

Morty scooted up next to her and gave her a reassuring pat on the back. "Hey, it's about having fun, right?"

"Shut up, Morty." Her comment may have sounded biting and rude, but Morty just spat out a laugh at it, backing away from her as she sat dead focused on the screen in front of her, eyes never once leaving the action.

The characters all lined up at the starting line, and the countdown began. Morticia leaned forward in her seat, hands feeling sweaty on her controller as she was determined not to lose to Roomie this time. Morty sucked at this, so she knew she could beat him any day.

When the signal for them to go flashed in front of her, Morticia spammed the buttons, feeling like she was about to break the joystick when she veered off to the left, passing Roomie who made a snide comment about it, but leaned forward too, mirroring her expressing and spamming of the buttons.

Morty hung back on the couch, resting against the pillow and laughed when he slipped on a banana peel and ended up in last place. "Aw jeez, that sucks."

Morticia and Roomie were neck and neck--both with turtle shells. With the level spitting fire at them during random intervals, Morticia was just about to toss her turtle shell when she had to make a hard break before getting pummeled by a fireball souring across the screen. Roomie took the chance to race ahead of her, laughing all the while he did so.

"YOU ASSHOLE!" Now thoroughly pissed and not willing to lose this one, Morticia leaned so far off the couch, she was about to fall off as she flew ahead, trying to keep her kart in a straight line to gain speed. It was then that Roomie spat out a banana peel right behind him when she got too close to his kart and Morticia spun out of control, falling off the track completely and causing at least four other characters to pass her when she had to be fished out of the lava and placed back on the track. "Oh my god..." She leaned back on the couch in defeat as Roomie flew over the finish line, the little fanfare going off at his victory as he gained first place.

She didn't even want to finish, now that she was back in fifth place with the others, but the game was going to force her to finish since she and Morty still hadn't gone over the finish line. Morty let out a nervous laugh as he got knocked off the track by a fireball. "Well, a-at least you'll beat me."

She couldn't even bring herself to say anything back to him. Morticia just raced over the finish line, staring back at the giant FIFTH that stared her back in the face. Ugh. Failing in video games felt worse than failing in real life for some reason. She slumped back down on the couch as Roomie cackled next to her.

"Wanna lose at another one?"

Morticia shook her head, all her competitive force now sucked out of her until she just felt dead inside from all the energy she took yelling at him earlier. "Nah."

Setting his controller down next to him in the crook of the couch, Morty cleared his throat before speaking. "W-we could just eat pizza and watch tv?"

Morticia nodded, still feeling bummed out.

Not wasting a second, Roomie dropped his controller before exiting through the kitchen. It was hardly a minute before he popped back in with a box and placed it down onto the coffee table in front of them. With a flick of the remote, he switched the game off and instead, they saw the faces of the local news anchormen Ricks who were ranting about the weather (it's going to be sunny all week, you fucks).

"Nothing really happens around here." As Morty took a slice of pizza, he slumped back in his seat, mimicking how Morticia was seated as they watched the news for a while. "The only time anything picks up is when there's an election or a huge robbery or something."

Morticia also grabbed a slice of pizza. "Who cares. I'd rather hear them say s-something mundane about the weather than bitch about politics."

“Weather’s just kind of, I don’t know, boring.” Morty mumbled through his chewing as he nibbled on his slice of pizza, eyes glued to the tv screen.

“How is the weather boring, it’s telling you whether or not you need t-t-to dress up for a certain day or not.”

Morty snorted at Morticia’s comment, swallowing his mouthful of pizza before responding to her. “You of all people would care about fashion, Morti.”

“I-I don’t…” Her face heated up, but she looked off to the side, trying to ignore his comment while focusing on the weather report at the same time, and failing. “I-I was talking more like rainy weather or something like that.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I was!”

Roomie rolled his eyes as they bickered back and forth, leaning over the coffee table for his second slice of pizza. “Why don’t you two get a damn room already.”

At his comment, Morticia watched as Morty’s face gushed red and he almost choked on his mouthful of pizza, but she took the opportunity to stand from her seat. “What a great idea. Let’s do that.”

“What, what—” And before he knew it, Morticia grabbed Morty by his arm, dragging him off the couch and toward her bedroom. He didn’t put up much of a fight, not that he ever did when Morticia got pushy with him, but she could hear the small nervous laughs he made as she pulled them into her bedroom and closed the door behind them. “I-I, uh—” Rubbing the back of his neck, Morty started sweating a little. “Y-your room smells really nice.” It was cute that he was struggling to come up with something to say. And despite the fact they’d been in her room alone earlier, for some reason, he was nervous to be in here with her with the door shut behind them.

“Really? You think my room smells nice?” Looking around her room, Morticia couldn’t help but notice how messy it had gotten lately. Not that she ever took the time to clean it up properly when she got home from school, but most of the time, it was in a state of purgatory where she would bother getting up to pick up the trash, but not actually put in the effort to actually clean anything. So, there were dusty shelves, the carpet needed vacuuming, and her sheets probably needed washing.

But despite that, Morty complimented her anyway. It was cute.

“Well yeah. No offense, but your roommate doesn’t have the best hygiene skills or anything.”

Morticia shrugged, crossing the room to check on her flower once again. Night had fallen over the Citadel, so it wasn’t getting any sun anymore. It looked so pathetic in the window, its petals almost wilted off in some places, while it struggled to stay alive. Ugh. She really should do better at keeping this thing healthy. “He’s okay. I mean. He bathes.”

Morty snorted. “Wow. That’s actually a step up from some Mortys I know.” He then twiddled his fingers, a red coat of blush gushing on his face as he struggled to come up with something to say. “Does he, um. You know…”

Morticia perked up, turning her attention away from her flower and back to him. “Does he what?”

“Um…” His blush deepened, until even she could see it in the dim lighting of her room. And when his voice lowered until it was almost a mumble, Morticia almost didn’t hear him when he finally did speak. “C-come onto you?”

Now she was blushing, having to push her glasses up when her whole face reared back at the question. “Wh-what, no! Roomie knows I’ve been dating you for like two weeks.”

Her statement made his face fall. “Just two weeks?”

“Morty, you aren’t actually jealous of my roommate, are you?” She rolled her eyes, moving over to him to give him a hug so tight, he choked on his air for a moment. “He’s okay. He never even flirted with me before he knew I dated you. I don’t even th-think he’s into girls, to be honest.”

“Oh…” With her arms wrapped around him, and Morty’s face pulled into the crook of her neck, she could feel the heat radiating off his face. “Th-that’s good…” But his voice didn’t sound very confident.

“I’m flattered you’re jealous though.” That just meant he cared, right? She pulled away from him to give him a smile and he smiled back, his cheeks still red with blush. “I mean…” And she took a second to give him a soft peck on the lips, one that caused him to seize up in her hold and he blushed, if possible, even harder than before. “You know I like you.”

“I-I-I like you t-too, Morti.” The fact he was fumbling over his words made her giggle and she gave him another smile before releasing him from the hug. The moment she let go of him, Morticia glanced back over toward her flower that sat in the window, looking so sad it couldn’t get any more sunlight for the day.

“This sucks.” She frowned, fingering the edges of the petals where the brown wilting was just starting to creep up. “I don’t take care of this thing l-like I ought to, b-but, I don’t want it to die because of me either. It’s a pretty flower.”

Morty nodded. “Yeah. Violets are pretty. Somehow it suits you too.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged, the blush finally leaving his face now that they weren’t so touchy with one another and were talking about something else that didn’t involve their relationship status. “I just—I don’t know. Think they’re pretty and they don’t die easily.”

She spat out a laugh. “The only good thing about them, to be honest.”

Morty shrugged. “Well, you are a beginner after all, you’re going to need help when it comes to tending to flowers.”

Sighing, Morticia touched the petals of her violet between the tips of her fingers again, just ever so slightly that she could feel the velvety texture on her skin, but not so much that she ripped the petal off. Morty was always way better than her when it came to schoolwork, because he actually studied the subjects they were working on, unlike her. Even if he wasn’t a flower person, the fact they were forced to work on botany proved what a good student he was by the fact he already sounded like an expert on the matter, even if they had only been taking the class for half a semester at this point. “I guess so.”

* * *

 

Monday morning was an absolute fucking drag to wake up to. Morticia sat up in bed, her hair a tangled mess around her, stuck to her face in some places as she rose with the artificial sun that signified the day was starting. Ugh. Daytime on the Citadel was something else. It wasn’t like it was too much of a difference that everybody was freaking out over having to get used to the artificially created day and night cycles, and even the weather, but.

Sometimes, Morticia couldn’t help but miss how the real sun felt. Or how the birds used to chirp outside her window in the mornings. Even leaning up in bed, her hair all over the place as she struggled to fight through the urge to just lay back down and fall back asleep, she knew she wouldn’t even have to fight over the bathroom that morning, because Roomie always slept in late. The times she tried to rouse him from sleep proved futile, and he waved her off, rolled back over, and went to sleep. She wondered if he ever even attended class, the way she always caught him at home, face glued to his computer, or always in the middle of a raid battle with other Mortys on a video game.

Morticia liked video games too, that much was obvious, but she still had the fear of getting kicked out onto the streets that got her up in the mornings enough to actually show up for class. Sometimes she let her vices get the better of her and stayed up late with Roomie to get in on the action of a raid, but she ended up paying for it the next morning when she was forced to wake up early and kept dozing in class.

But, now that Teacher was offering to tutor her and make up those bad grades, she couldn’t afford to start wasting time in his class anymore. He was going to start expecting improvement, and whether she liked it or not, that meant no more late nights, no more raids, no more skipping out on her homework just because her attention span got the better of her.

It was time to study.

Standing from bed, she did her business in the bathroom, washed her face, brushed her hair, and fixed her hairband in place. A quick scan of her room before she got dressed and she’d almost forgotten to grab her bag. That would’ve been embarrassing. Morticia sighed, pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose and let out a long sigh. Today was going to suck ass, especially since tutoring started today, she wouldn’t get to hang out with Morty after class anymore. But, he assured her they could meet up afterwards. She just hated that it basically meant he would have to kill time for an additional hour or so because she was a dumbass.

Ugh.

She really was stupid. That much was obvious.

Before leaving her room, she glanced off at the window where the violet seemed to have perked up with life once it was back in the sunlight again. At least it had more life in it than Morticia did today. Not that that mattered much. She’d already watered it last night, so it should be good for a while now, right? It needed sun and possibly tender loving care, so she shrugged, closed her door, and headed out the dorm towards the school.

Even the early morning air felt artificial in the way there was no dew on the ground, or fog in the air when everyone began to gather around the main school building for morning classes. It was just the sun peaking, ever so slightly, off to the side. Some Ricks had the genius idea that to make living there as immersive as possible for some of them, they needed a weathering system. Which meant sunlight. Moonlight, seasonal changes, and other shit like that. Which just made it waaay more complicated for others when the seasons would start randomly changing, sometimes way too fast, just because some dumbass up on the top wanted to _keep it real_.

But, Morticia didn’t mind so much how fake it all was. It only served as a reminder that life here was just a temporary situation after all. And like all temporary things, sometimes things have to be faked or artificial in order to recreate the real thing, until the real thing can be obtained again. And, despite the threat of failing classes and having the weight of possibly winding up homeless on the streets with weird Mortys and drug lords, Morticia saw this all as a temporary situation she was in.

It wouldn’t really matter how bad her grades were, which was why she goofed off a lot, because she didn’t plan to stay here for long. Or rather, she didn’t plan to wait much longer to be taken off here. The only reason she had come here in the first place was because her Rick had taken her to the daycare for a week, just a week, for his own reasons.

But after six months, they suddenly put her in this school and she was placed in a classroom with a bunch of other Mortys who were dressed the same, expected to act the same, and fed weird lectures from a professor Rick who frightened her when she first laid eyes on him.

But, her Morty was there, and he was always kind to her, always so helpful when she had questions, and it wasn’t long that she grew attached to him, always near him, always chatting with him, and the two were inseparable now, best friends. Maybe even something more than that.

The school always looked imposing when she first started coming here, but now it was becoming more like a regular place she just hated seeing in the mornings. At first, she remembered being impressed by the expanse of how large the place was in itself, and worried how she would ever find her classes on time in this mansion-like school, but now, as she settled herself down into her desk, flipping her notebook open and preparing for a lecture in which she would write down as many notes as she could, it was just the daily grind at this point. This place had lost its luster long ago, and was now just something she looked at in the mornings and thought ‘ _ugh’_ before rolling her eyes.

When Teacher walked in and greeted them in the same way he always did, which was usually a deadpan hello that didn’t sound very welcoming or like he was even interested in greeting in the first place, it was just a word after all, Morticia reached down into the cubby of her desk to pull out a hair tie she sometimes kept either in her locker or locked in her desk when she didn’t feel like dealing with her long hair that day. And today was one of those days she could tell was going to be an ‘ _ugh’_ day.

As she pulled her long hair into a ponytail, Teacher began to speak, and she couldn’t help but notice his eyes glance over in her direction when he did so, as though focused on her in that specific moment he started talking about grades, and Morticia felt her face heat up, her stomach in a knot over if he would actually call her out on her bad grades and embarrass her in front of everyone. But, he merely turned his focus back to the rest of the class, walking with his hands behind his back as he was prone to do, and got on their case about studying harder, yadda yadda. The same old thing.

He made her so nervous, even though everyone else thought he was an asshole, she did too at first. He still gave her a bad case of the nerves though. Every time he turned in her direction during the lecture, Morticia would freeze up, expecting him to call her out for something, but he never did. Maybe she was fearing for something that wasn’t even there in the first place, like—just thinking he was an asshole because the rest of the Mortys did—when he was kind enough to offer her tutoring. And really, when she spoke one on one with him, he was polite, kind, and only seemed interested in her wellbeing. So like. Teacher wasn’t bad, he was just strict, especially when it came to teaching class. He had to be, or else everyone would goof off and he’d lose control of his classroom. Morticia could understand that, at least from his perspective, why he had to act the way he did, and why he wouldn’t care if everyone in class thought he was an asshole.

Scribbling notes into her notepad, it was so difficult for Morticia to pay attention that day. She wanted to start making a good impression now, because he had been kind enough to offer tutoring and _since_ he had been kind enough to offer it to her, that meant she had to start buckling down and putting in the effort to let him know she was trying her best, even when she hadn’t before. She was in no ways a good student, as she didn’t even study for the past two tests they had, opting instead to play video games, but as she sat there, determined as hell to get something out of his lecture, she scribbled down a whole page of notes, and then two, then three, before Teacher called break time and the tension in the class broke away almost instantly.

The Mortys around her groaned and stretched, some of them pulling out headphones to listen to music while most of the others stood from their desks and went outside to the vending machine for a snack. Morticia leaned back in her seat, not sure if she wanted a snack or not so soon in the morning, but the desk next to her shifted and she looked over to see Morty giving her a welcoming smile.

“How’s the note writing going?”

“Look!” Smiling, she showed him her notebook, proud she had actually gotten something accomplished that day and managed to write out three page’s worth of notes. “I wrote down everything he said—o-or I-I-I tried to at least.” She blushed a little, setting her notebook back down. “He talks fast sometimes.

Morty gave a soft laugh as she showed off the scribbles in her notebook. “I’ve never seen someone so proud of how many notes they wrote down.”

She shrugged. “I-I suck at taking notes. I’m never as proficient as you are. It’s almost like you don’t even have to write down notes, you can just listen to what he says and memorize it that way.” She sighed. “I wish I could do that.”

Morty shrugged along with her before leaning back in his seat. “Everybody’s different. Just because we’re all Mortys doesn’t mean we have to be the same.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Fifteen minutes came and went just like that, and before she knew it, Morticia was seated back at her desk, pencil in hand, ready to try her best and write some damn notes so she could pass the next test and not flunk out. The lectures droned on, and so did the atmosphere in the room, to the point Morticia was losing her resolve faster and faster, and almost nodded off a few times, had Teacher’s voice not roused her from dozing when he suddenly raised his tone, almost as if in that moment, he had seen her about to fall asleep and did so on purpose to scare her awake.

Actually paying attention in class was so hard. Morticia remembered having trouble like this back at home, when she wasn’t the perfect student there either, but the consequences of failing weren’t as severe. Well, maybe not in quite as direct a way, but there were steps taken along the way to prevent everyone from doing something like that, and she had plenty of chances to catch her grades up before the end of the year approached and she squeezed out a measly C for her classes. Wasn’t perfect, but hey. Good enough. Mom and Dad certainly never gave her hell about making all C’s, though she did get lectured at her dad once for not trying as hard as Summer did, who was more the A student than she could ever be.

Morticia sighed.

Struggling in school was just a part of life at this point, and a struggle she was never going to get away from, not even when she was off planet and somewhere totally different—she was forced to go to school. Though, school here was more of a skewed fucked up idea of what school really should be like. She knew the whole point was to brainwash them into being the ‘perfect’ Mortys, but sometimes they threw in lessons about quantum physics and she completely tapped out. Fuck that.

The day droned on and on, seeming to go by even slower than usual. But then, it was Monday after all. Fridays were always the best, because she had the weekend to look forward to, in which she and Morty usually hung out the whole time, or played video games with Roomie. Monday always sludged by at the snail’s pace because it was Monday and she swore time itself moved slower on purpose. Maybe one of the councilman Ricks had stopped time without them realizing. Who knew at this point. They already controlled the weather.

When the bell finally rang that afternoon, Morticia was about to get excited by the fact she could finally go home and decompress, but realized today was also the start of tutoring, which meant she had to stay longer. Fuck. The initial rise in her stomach when she was about to jump from her chair and leap from the room died so fast, someone may as well have told her her pet goldfish died that day.

Ugh. Oh well. She’d gotten herself into this mess, there was no point in complaining about it now.

Morty sidled up to her as the classroom began to fan out and the indistinct chatter of the other Mortys buzzed out of the room. “Do you want me to wait for you?”

She shook her head. “N-no, you don’t have to do that. It’ll probably be awhile.” She sighed, propping her elbow up on the table and resting her chin her palm. “We can go eat dinner later tonight if you want though.”

He smiled, tugging his pack up his shoulder before nodding. “Okay! See you then.” And he walked from the room.

It always surprised her how different the classroom was without actual people in it. It was one of those creepy things that shouldn’t have been creepy, because you were so used to the place buzzing with noise and movement and people, but now it was oddly quiet, even with just her and Teacher there, as he sat at his desk and straightened up a stack of papers, she felt if she so much as swallowed to wet her throat, it would make a noise too loud.

Intimidating wasn’t the right word for this. Teacher still made her nervous, despite everything, and she sat at her desk, waiting for any kind of sentence to be spoken to her, waiting for something to happen. For a while, he didn’t even look up at her, he only straightened his desk, and Morticia felt so awkward being there with him, wondering if perhaps he was expecting her to do something or take the initiative and speak, but she was too afraid to say anything, not that she knew what to even say in the first place.

“Miss Smith.”

The sudden flare to life of words from nowhere made her almost jump in her seat, but she composed herself long enough to straighten up and face him. “Y-yes?” No matter what he said, she always had the feeling he was angry at her, though it couldn’t have been true, she couldn’t help being intimidated all the time by him.

“How well did you understand the lesson today?” And now he was finally looking at her from across his desk, his hands linking his fingers together as he rested his chin ever so slightly on top, awaiting her answer.

Morticia started to panic again, not really knowing why, when it was a simple question, but she fumbled for her words to come out and desperately grabbed at her notebook, flipping to the pages she scribbled notes for today. “W-well, I-I-I—um, I wrote a lot o-of—of notes.” Turning her notebook over, she showed him the pages she had written in, hoping that would gain her at least some points. Or maybe a point and a half.

Instead of looking impressed like Morty had done, Teacher gave her a sort of half frown, like he wasn’t really sure what to make of the writing, before turning his attention back to her. “But, did you _understand_ it?”

Now her face was heating up, because these were the kinds of questions she was asked back at home when she started flunking out of a class there too. The teacher always asked her what was it she didn’t understand, but she didn’t know how to respond, because how do you explain what you don’t understand when you don’t understand it? It was stupid, and she knew if she shook her head no, he was going to ask her what, but if she said yes, he would call her out on the lie. So, she sat there, again fumbling over the words until she ended up shaking in her seat, not knowing what to say.

What she didn’t expect was for him to laugh.

Teacher laughed. Or maybe laughed was too strong of a word. But, he definitely chuckled at her. When she snapped her head up to look at him, he was smiling, the grin on his face unmistakable, and she had to wonder if she was seeing this right. Teacher _never_ smiled, forget laughing, but to see that expression on his face, she was stunned. But, before she could revel in it any longer, he opened his mouth, “Miss Smith, I’m not going to bite you. If you don’t understand something, it doesn’t matter what it is, even if you don’t understand anything at all, just say so. It’s okay, I promise.”

Her face heat up, because she didn’t expect that. For Teacher to be so strict in class and not tolerate any kind of bullshit, but to go from that to this…gentle demeanor—it was throwing her off so hard she could only sit there, stunned into silence. She was used to the other Ricks being loud and gross and well—assholes. Teacher never seemed to raise his voice or yell or scream even when things went south in class and he had to deal with a little bitchass Morty who thought he could argue back with him. Teacher just threw out the troublesome ones, and scared the ones who remained into submission by just being so calm and _not_ angry. This was screwing with her, as she had never seen this side of him, she wasn’t really sure how to act.

But, she saw Teacher smile. He definitely smiled. He was speaking to her in that gentle tone, and he wasn’t making her feel stupid, even when she couldn’t tell him what she didn’t understand out of his lecture. And the longer she sat there, struggling over what to say, the more she tried so hard to say something—anything to him, to let him know she wasn’t stupid for not speaking in the first place, it only made her struggle that much harder for what to say. Because, how do you explain to someone something you don’t understand?

“Here.” Standing from his desk, his chair skidded against the floor when he backed up, and Teacher crossed the room over toward her. Morticia’s breath caught in her throat when he did so, but he was smooth in his movements, only grabbing the desk next to her when he did so, pulling it up beside her, and seated himself until their desks created a longer table. “Why don’t we go over step by step the lesson from today, and if there’s something you don’t understand, you tell me, and we’ll look at it from a different angle.”

Morticia nodded, feeling so small with him next to her like this. She didn’t think in the whole semester she’d been at this school that she’d ever been this close to him before, and she could smell whatever cologne he had on. Or was it cologne? It could have been shampoo for all she knew. Fuck, she was focusing on something like that instead of the school materials in front of her and already, she couldn’t focus. This wasn’t good. He just made her so intimidated, she didn’t know why she was nervous around him. Maybe it was all the horror stories from Mortys about how he would flunk anybody and they’d wind up on the streets, or how people would get booted from school and never to be seen again. Teacher had that much authority, and everyone hated his lectures, because sometimes he would call them out and embarrass them. Mortys were always going on about how it was best to bail from his class and get another Rick who gave everybody A’s, but she was unfortunate enough to get stuck with him.

But, she was also being offered tutoring, which couldn’t have made him that bad. Maybe those stories were just stories, and he was actually a kind Rick deep down, he just couldn’t show it in class, because he would lose control of the Mortys who acted out.

She swallowed as he took her notebook from her, being so deliberate in his movements as he placed it down in front of himself and looked at her scribbles. She could even hear the material of his robes shuffling in the quiet of the room, a sound so loud now when it was something she couldn’t even hear on the norm.

“You did a good job taking notes today.”

Her cheeks flushed at the compliment. Why was he being so nice to her? Maybe it was on purpose to get her to relax, because she was obviously nervous right now.

“How do you normally study?”

She almost spat out that she didn’t, but bit her lip, trying to think back to the times she went to a normal ass high school and the times she miraculously survived a test, what in fact, she did. “Uh…” Fuck, she was fumbling over her words again, not knowing what to say, or how to react. “I-I just—um, write stuff down and read it over and over.”

“Studying is different for everyone, so it’s all up to you what works best.” He seemed to be contemplating his words carefully before he spoke, but then he handed her the notebook back. “I’m impressed with the notes. If you keep doing that, that might help you.”

She nodded, still feeling embarrassed when she took the notebook back from him and stared down at her messy handwriting. To get a compliment like that from Teacher…she wasn’t sure if it made her happy or not. There was a weird feeling in her this whole time that what she was doing wasn’t even right. That she was getting special treatment just being here, and it wasn’t fair to the other Mortys who were probably struggling even worse than she was, but didn’t get opportunities like this.

She felt guilty being here.

The rest of the lesson droned on, but it was much more invasive than regular class. Invasive in the fact that Teacher was sitting right next to her the entire time, so she didn’t have the luxury of nodding off, or hoping to doodle in her notebook like normally. She was actually forced to focus for once, but maybe that was a good thing. Working with him one on one, he was patient with her, even when she didn’t understand something, and took the time to explain it a different way for her, until she finally did, even it if took multiple tries.

But, he didn’t make her feel stupid, or useless for not understanding something, even if that something turned out to be simple in the end. She was grateful for that.

In the end, her notebook was full of extra notes, figures, and the like, thanks to his lesson. She was confident the information would stick a little more this time, not that she planned to go home and look at it any more than she had to, but just as Morticia went to stand from her desk, Teacher’s voice rose up. “You will be back tomorrow, right?”

She didn’t have much of a choice at this point, but she nodded, giving him a smile in return as she gathered her books and the like into her backpack. “Y-yes. Thank you for tutoring me.”

As she stood from her desk, she pulled her hair free from the ponytail she’d had it in all day, making sure to tuck her hair tie back under her desk for tomorrow’s lecture too, before she grabbed her backpack to head out the door.

“Miss Smith.”

When Teacher’s voice rang out again, she froze before turning to him again. It was hard to break out of that habit of freezing like a deer in headlights every time he called her name, but he was smiling when she looked at him.

“I know you don’t feel good about this whole thing, but please try not to worry. I’m going to help you.”

How could someone so intimidating and stone cold during lectures be so gentle and kind to her like this? It was like he was a completely different person. Not at all like the other Ricks who were loud, crude, and rude, but—Morticia tightened her grip on her backpack strap as she felt the heat come to her face again when he smiled at her.

“O-okay…”

Maybe the stories Mortys told her were just stories and he actually was a nice person, when behind closed doors. He had to be if he was willing to go as far as tutoring her like this to help her get her grades up when that was something that was completely her fault to begin with. Maybe she’d misjudged him.

So, she gave him back another soft smile. “Th-thank you…” And finally left, feeling a little less nervous this time, a little less intimidated, and a little less stressed about class looming over her like a giant storm cloud ready to wreak havoc.

She’d been so nervous that whole day about tutoring with him, thinking he was going to turn into the devil or something the second she was alone with him, but that gentle, softer side of him was such a contrast to how she normally saw him. Maybe that’s how Teacher really was when nobody was around? She didn’t know.

All she knew was that she could smile a little more when she met up with Morty for dinner that night, a little more confident that maybe this place wasn’t as bad as she thought it was to begin with.


	3. Chapter 3

“I can’t believe you survived.” Morty was seated at the table, flipping through one of his notebooks as he wrote out something while also dipping at his dinner to eat.

Morticia shrugged, also picking at her food, just glad the entire study session was over and done with for today. “I-I have to go back tomorrow, I guess.”

An annoyed sigh from Morty. “Why? Is he expecting you to do extra studying after each lecture?”

Taking a bite of her chicken nuggets, Morticia shrugged, dipping the remaining food in ketchup. “I guess. I mean—I probably need it. You know how bad my grades are.”

“But, you know how to study, right? What’s Rick doing that’s so different than just lecturing?”

She knew Morty was just trying to take her side on any kind of issue and cheer her up, but she also knew no matter what he said, she wasn’t going to win this one. She’d fucked up, she let her grades slip, and Teacher was just trying to help. And really, studying with him one on one _had_ helped her, if just a little, to understand all the material better. She could be grateful for that, and take advantage of the offer while he was still willing to help her.

Maybe she would even become an A student because of this. The thought made her smile, mostly laughing at herself for thinking of herself as A student material, but really. Maybe if she studied hard enough and tutored with Teacher enough, she could actually make an A.

It would be something, at least.

“He _is_ helping. I know you think he’s some awful asshole, but studying with him one on one is actually really helpful. He just acts different during class because he has to.”

Morty arched his eyebrows before picking at another fry on his plate. “I don’t know. I’ve talked to him one on one before and he seemed the same to me. Just a douchebag like all the others. My Rick was a douchebag, but sometimes I think this one gets off to it a little too much.”

“I don’t know…” Maybe she was just seeing things differently, but she didn’t want to argue with him when he’d obviously had bad run ins with Teacher before. Just because he was nice to her sometimes didn’t mean he couldn’t be a dick to the others. But, she felt bad again because of this whole situation. The fact Teacher offered her tutoring in the first place was special treatment. None of the others got that kind of treatment, did they? He even admitted he didn’t do this often, and she was a special case, but—

How special? It couldn’t have been that special if she was the one who got herself into this mess in the first place enough to even need tutoring. Maybe Teacher was trying to offer any kind of kindness he could, but it still made her uncomfortable. All the other Mortys hated him. She hadn’t heard one good thing about him, and that’s what made her nervous around him in the first place. If he treated them like that, surely he would treat her the same.

But, he didn’t. That had to be unfair, right?

Morticia sighed to herself, not believing she was sitting here actually upset over the fact her teacher didn’t treat her like dogshit. When it came to her schoolwork, maybe it was better to take any advantage she could, but—

This wasn’t fair really.

For some reason, she just couldn’t seem to stomach anymore chicken nuggets, even though her stomach was growling for more, so she threw her plate away, grabbing her bag when she passed by the table. “See you in the morning.” She smiled to Morty who looked up from his notebook enough to smile back.

“Yeah! We’ll have to hangout this weekend to make up for lost time.”

Yeah. That would be nice. She knew the moment the weekend hit, she’d lose all resolve to study anymore, but maybe that was okay. Hopefully, the information during her tutor sessions would stick and be enough where she wouldn’t have to even study at all. Ugh, Morticia knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but it was a nice thought anyway.

* * *

 

Holy fuck, she was almost late that morning. Teacher didn’t even let students into the room if they were late, and she scrambled when she realized her alarm never went off. The fuck was wrong with it? It hadn’t ever done that before—but she flew from bed, scurrying to wash her face, brush her teeth, and throw on some clothes. There was no time to fix her hair and make it look pretty, but she was out the door within a couple minutes after waking up, only noticing Roomie was passed out on the couch for a second before shutting the door behind her.

She sat at her desk, out of breath from sprinting and her face flushed when she realized how puffy her hair must look since she didn’t have time to brush it that morning. Ugh. Today was already looking like a shitshow, but she grabbed her notebooks from her bag, placing them on the desk and reached underneath to grab her hair tie and pull her messy hair into a bun to—

Wait.

Her fingers traced around the inside of her desk but she only felt a few stray pencils left inside. Did she forget to put it back in here yesterday? No, she definitely remembered stuffing it back inside, she knew that. She always put her hair tie back in her desk when she was done using it. Moving her hand from underneath, she bent over as far as she could, looking awkward as she did so to peek into the little cubby.

No sign of her hair tie there. Maybe she didn’t push it back far enough and it fell out onto the floor? A quick search around the floor yielded no results and Morticia let out an exasperated sigh just as Teacher entered the door, locking it behind him. Well, that was just great. For all she knew, she dropped it by accident or left it in her locker. Not that it was the end of the world, she could always get a new one back at the apartment, but still.

Today wasn’t looking too exciting as Teacher started rambling on about the lecture for the day, and she was forced to suck it up, her messy hair now dipping down in her face whenever she leaned over to write notes and it was so goddamn annoying. Morticia didn’t know why she didn’t just chop it all off sometimes. But, that was just a passing thought sometimes. She liked her hair the way it was, it was just annoying right now and she was in a bad mood, thinking of anything and everything sour.

After sleeping late, she figured that wouldn’t make her so damn tired, but screw it all if she didn’t start falling asleep during the lecture again, once again getting woken up by Teacher randomly raising his voice and scaring the shit out of her. He knew. He had to know and be doing that on purpose. She’d seen him kick out Mortys in class before for sleeping during his lectures, causing them to miss attendance and get a failing grade that day and it scared the absolute shit out of her to where she refused to sleep during his lessons, no matter how sleep deprived she was that day.

But, it was becoming harder, now that she was actually trying to pay attention to the lesson, and write down notes. In a way, she almost wished he would kick her out of the class, but Morty would have to come to her rescue like always and they’d end up getting into a big argument so. Yeah, best to avoid that.

With class over that day, Morticia stared at another four or so pages worth of notes she’d taken, and felt accomplished for once. At least after lunch, she had more skip in her step and it was easier to stay awake. That was good, right? It would’ve been great if she hadn’t agreed to stay another day for tutoring today as well. She just really wanted to go hang out with Morty for a while, maybe watch a movie, or play baseball with the other Mortys down in the courtyard. Something fun to break up the monotony of getting drowned in schoolwork.

Morty passed her by, shooting her a sympathetic glance as he did so. “See you tonight.” And he was gone from the room, just like that. With the other Mortys having piled out of the room, one by one, Morticia was once again left alone with Teacher for the second time, and spread out her notebook to a new page, ready for his lesson.

He wasted little time in standing from his desk and moving over to her, pulling up the desk beside her to sit down next to her again. “Was studying any easier for you last night?”

Sweat accumulated at the base of her neck, because she didn’t have to heart to tell him she didn’t actually study, but briefly glanced over everything. “Y-yes, your extra notes were really helpful.” She tried not to make it look like she was guilty, but he just smiled back at her.

“That’s good. The more time you spend with it, the more you’ll understand it.”

When he pulled his chair up beside her, so close she could almost smell his scent again, Morticia glanced up and noticed something odd. Well, maybe not odd but. Teacher usually wore his hair in a ponytail during lectures, if things got heated enough. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come into class with his hair tied back, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pink wrapped around his hair, keeping it from his face and couldn’t help but think.

That couldn’t have been her hair tie, could it? Why would Teacher wear something pink? That didn’t seem like his style at all, but her face heated up the minute she thought of the accusation. What in the hell was she thinking? Teacher wouldn’t—blatantly steal from her desk, would he? And why would he steal it? It didn’t make any sense. No, he probably had his own collection at home and grabbed a pink one without thinking how it would look if everyone saw it.

It wasn’t like Morticia was the only person on the Citadel who wore her hair up sometimes. God, she could be so embarrassing, thinking things like that. She just misplaced hers was all. It was probably in her locker, or maybe she lost it and it got swept up in the trash, but wherever it was, it was long gone by now.

“Something wrong?”

Fuck, he’d caught her staring and Morticia felt the heat return to her face. “N-no, sorry. Just thinking.” What a sloppy excuse, but she quickly picked up her pencil and smoothed out her notebook, ready for today’s lesson to begin.

* * *

 

It wasn’t there either.

Morticia sighed, closing her locker after picking up her books and sauntering off to her dorm, having no luck in locating her hair tie. She hadn’t realized she and Teacher spent almost two and half hours studying until he looked at the clock, straightened himself up, and offered to let her come back tomorrow, which she accepted, though why she did that was beyond her. This was becoming increasingly difficult, and the more she sat down in that desk, the more she just wanted to fuck the whole thing and flunk out. It wasn’t worth it.

He kept assuring her the next test would be easier because of this. _Don’t forget it’s at the end of the week, Miss Smith_ , he’d tell her. Don’t forget to study.

Morticia gripped her backpack strap and let out another tired sigh as she descended the stairs toward the courtyard. She wouldn’t forget. It was only Tuesday, but she would study really hard the day before and hopefully pass that way. It was sloppy, her whole studying regime was sloppy, and would be hopeless if not for Teacher guiding her along the way like this. She had no hope of passing, but at least some of the information was starting to stick.

The courtyard was empty when she emerged from the building, disappointed everyone had already gone home for the night to do homework, goof off, or whatever it was most Mortys did when they got out of school. They didn’t have sports programs here, no Rick gave that much of a fuck about it, so most Mortys created their own fun, did their own thing.

She just reeeeally wanted to go home and do nothing right now.

Roomie was playing games on the tv when she walked through the door, wanting nothing more than to go to bed. She and Morty didn’t even get to hang out tonight, but that was okay. They didn’t need to be together every single day to have fun, but it would’ve been nice to catch a movie with him, or go get some ice cream.

This weekend. She kept telling herself it would all be worth it when the weekend happened, and she could goof off as much as she wanted. She and Morty could stay up late, watch scary movies, eat popcorn, and make each other laugh until it was so late, the artificial sun started coming up.

She closed her eyes. Just a few more days. It would be so worth it then.

When she entered her room, dumping her bag on the floor, she looked off to the flower on her windowsill and frowned at it. It wasn’t any worse for wear, but it wasn’t any better either. But, flowers don’t really jump back to life once they start to go. And she hadn’t taken very good care of it.

Digging her finger into the soil, she noted how dry it was and used the little watering can next to it to replenish some life into it. It would be nice if things jumped back to life immediately here. It was the Citadel, so most everything was—not the way it was supposed to be. They had an artificial sun, artificial weather, and she doubted any of the food here was actually good for anyone. Most stores were owned by Mortys who flunked out of school and the others wound up on the streets, stealing money, robbing banks, or generally being douchebags to one another.

The school was supposed to offer hope that they could live a better life than that, but at the risk of failure and no recovery once that failure happened. It wasn’t fair at all, but nothing Morticia could do about it.

She sighed for the umpteenth time that day, sitting back onto her bed and stared at her collection of comic books she’d accumulated, mostly thanks to Roomie. He had been on the Citadel longer than her, bringing video games, comic books, basically what was his entire room with him in order to stay cooped up in the dorm, but Morticia couldn’t help but feel jealous of that.

If only her Rick hadn’t left her here at the daycare. He could have taken her with him. And whatever adventure he wanted to go on, she could handle it. It wasn’t like he was an asshole when it came to that—he always dragged her on errands the second he got the chance. It was uncharacteristic of him to opt out of that and leave her here, letting her know he would be back soon.

But, when was soon?

How long was he going to keep her waiting?

She wouldn’t have to deal with all this fake school bullshit if it weren’t for him. If he hadn’t left her here to go off doing his own thing, but she leaned back on her bed as she stared up at the ceiling. It would be nice to see her own ceiling again. It was only six months, but it felt like she’d already been here a lifetime, and hated the fact she’d gotten used to it somewhat. It wasn’t weird anymore to see multiple versions of herself walking alongside her, talking in the same manner as she, sharing the same interests at her, or looking exactly like her when they pulled up to marvel at her that they’d never seen a girl Morty before.

She hated she was getting used to the school, and flunking out because it wasn’t worth it. What was the point when Rick was going to come pick her up? If he was.

If he hadn’t abandoned her here.

She clutched at her blanket, hoping that wasn’t the reason. Hoping beyond hope that wasn’t why her Rick hadn’t come back by to pick her up, and why they kicked her out of the daycare for not being registered there long enough.

Maybe she’d been abandoned and maybe he hated her enough to leave her here because he couldn’t stand her, but maybe he was just caught up doing other things. She couldn’t afford to think of it as something bad, but she did worry about him, about what he was doing right now, where he was, maybe if he was thinking about her too.

He was going to get an earful when he came back for leaving her here for so long.

With these thoughts waning on her mind, Morticia slowly drifted to sleep.

* * *

 

Morticia cringed when she realized today was botany day. Ugh. Fucking _botany_. She had the strongest urge to say fuck it all and just stay in bed, but Morty would give her hell for that, and Teacher would certainly, if she skipped one of his lessons, even more so if she skipped tutoring. There was no getting out of this. At least she woke up on time, that was something to be grateful for.

She had time to actually brush her hair and hunt around for a hair tie that morning before slipping it over her wrist this time and heading out the door. As usual, Roomie was probably locked up in his room, still working on a raid mission and would probably sleep till noon. That was nothing new.

Despite getting ample sleep last night, Morticia knew the second Teacher droned on about plants, she was going to lose it and start drifting off again. One of these days, she was going to fuck up bad enough and get caught snoring in class, possibly even kicked out at that.

As she gathered with her classmates to the greenhouse, she found Morty waving her over from his spot and she ran to catch up to him. “Hey.” He was always so oddly cheerful in the mornings, even when they were doing something boring and stupid. “Did you sleep good?”

She nodded. “Y-yeah, for once.”

“How’s Fred doing?”

“Who?”

Morty stared. “Your plant? You named it Fred.”

“ _Oh._ ” She had forgotten all about that, to be honest. It was just a joke at the time, she wasn’t actually serious about naming it Fred, but it was cute Morty remembered it and took it seriously like that. “I-it’s fine. Not dead yet.”

He snorted. “You always say that.”

“It’s the truth though.”

She stifled her giggles with Morty just as Teacher entered the greenhouse, and the entire class quieted immediately in his presence. How could he look so intimidating around everyone else like this, but when Morticia was alone with him, saw how—well, not that, he could be?

It was so strange to see, even now as he produced a book from the desk in the corner and flipped through the first couple of pages to the lesson, she couldn’t help but notice something like that.

When he looked up from his book, he made eye contact with her, no doubt noticing she was staring at him again, and Morticia immediately looked away from him, her cheeks gushing. It was always so embarrassing when he caught her staring off into space like that, especially if that space happened to be occupied by him. He never said anything about it, or even if he did notice (which she knew he did), he probably thought nothing of it. Morticia was the one overthinking things, but she always thought it was so embarrassing to get caught staring like that. What if he wondered why she was staring? It was just because she spaced out a lot and didn’t mean to. That was all.

Morty nudged her in the side, causing her to blink and come back to reality, remembering she was supposed to be paying attention. “C-come on, we gotta—um. Transfer soil and stuff.”

She nodded, putting on her gardening gloves. This was always the worst part of the class—having to work with dirt. She didn’t like dirt. Sometimes it had spiders and worms in it, and even though she wasn’t a big fraidy cat to be afraid of spiders, she couldn’t help but flinch at the sight of the worms wriggling around in the dirt like that. Some Mortys thought it was funny and tried to put worms down each other’s shirts, but she always cringed at the sight of them. They always looked like dying insects did when they jerked around and twitched right after getting stepped on. Eugh.

The greenhouse part of class usually involved them tending to the flowers outside, learning about the different plants, and digging up soil when needed, putting down mulch and the like. It wasn’t necessarily hot outside, since the weather was controlled, but running around the way they were, trying to push past each other to get something resulted in almost everyone sweating. Morticia hated to sweat, but at least the greenhouse part was better than sitting in class and dozing off.

“Miss Smith.”

She hadn’t even noticed Teacher had sidled up behind her while she was brushing spider webs off of a flower, and jumped a little at the sound of his voice before whirling around to see him.

“How’s your take home flower doing?” He seemed genuinely interested to know, but the question, while not coming from Morty for once, made her stomach lurch with the feeling she was failing at that too. Well, the flower hadn’t actually died yet, so she could still say that—

“I-it’s—um—it’s not dead.” Her reply was nervous, as she felt nervous being questioned like this, and expected Teacher to look less than amused by her response, but he just gave her a soft smile.

“I see. Keep your eye on it then.” And he was off, questioning Morty about his flower as well, who had only good things to say about it.

Morticia crumbled, feeling weak in the knees. It never failed just how intimidated he could make her by asking a simple question, but she always had a fear he would snap at her, grow angry with her, or act like a piece of shit like all the Mortys always said. And she had no reason to think that. Teacher wasn’t that bad, just sort of hard to deal with sometimes, maybe a little strict, but. Certainly, not that bad.

With botany class over, they finally had the freedom to go back inside and Morticia grumbled as she dug through her locker. The easy part of the day was over, now it was back to lectures. Well, maybe not as easy, as she didn’t like digging around in dirt any more than she had to, but at least they got to be up and moving.

As she filed through her things, she went to grab at her pencil bag, the cute little blue zipped up bag she always kept in her locker for spare pencils, but found it nowhere in sight. Fucking great, was she just going insane and misplacing things again? Or maybe she wasn’t paying attention and actually lost it somewhere. A quick digging around in her backpack told her no, she hadn’t put it in there without remembering. Why did she keep misplacing her things like this? Maybe this whole studying after school for several hours thing was getting to her and she was forgetting things more easily.

When she got to class, she borrowed a pencil from Morty who was kind enough to let her borrow a spare, and wrote her notes with that. Thankfully, because of botany, the actual class time was cut in half, but that didn’t make it any less boring. There was only about two pages worth of notes today, but that was fine with her. At least, she hoped the botany part wasn’t going to be on the test Friday.

“How are you doing, Miss Smith?”

This was becoming like clockwork now, to hang around after class and wait for the others to leave, so that she could study with him, and she looked up this time when he asked her a question, now that she wasn’t surrounded by the other Mortys.

“O-okay.” She wanted to tell him she kept losing her stuff like a moron, but decided against it, biting her lip instead as he did his usual, pulling the desk next to hers to create a longer table in front of them.

It was almost unnoticeable, but not so much Morticia didn’t notice it. When he pulled up next to her, like he always did, and she could feel the material of his robes right against her skin, almost pressing into her. He was way too close, but she tried to shift in her seat to maybe move an inch over, just enough she wasn’t directly touching him—and it didn’t work. It made her sweat when she realized she couldn’t shift her body enough out of the way to avoid touching his arm, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Like always, he grabbed her notebook from her, looked over her notes, and told her to keep it up, that was good. But, she was starting to feel claustrophobic with him this close to her, so close she smelled whatever shampoo he washed with muddled with a bunch of other scents. It couldn’t be cologne, right? It may as well have been, as overbearing as it was now.

But, she didn’t have the courage to bring up the fact he was practically leaning on her at some points, moving just a little too close, a little too far up against her she felt his arm through his robe. He had to notice that, right? It would be way too awkward to bring it up to him and admit she wanted to move away from him right now, but goddamn, did she want to.

“Are you alright, Miss Smith?”

He had to notice the fact she was sweating, her face red, even her glasses were fogging up at this point, but she nodded, trying to pretend she wasn’t nervous as hell having him against her like this. If he hadn’t moved off by now, maybe he just didn’t notice through his robes, but he had to know he was pressing against her a little too much this time? Enough that she was uncomfortable with the contact, especially from him—but goddamn, this was awkward. She couldn’t say anything, or move out of the way without it becoming known she was trying to move away from him. Or maybe sitting here was only making it more awkward, maybe he was the one wondering why she wasn’t moving away from him yet.

Ugh, this was a shitfest. “I-I’m fine. Just nervous about the—about the test.”

“Don’t be. Just think when it’s over, you’ll have the weekend and I’m not assigning another test for at least two weeks. You’ll have some time to relax after this, right?”

She nodded, still sweating. “Y-yeah. There’s some scary movies I-I’ve been wanting to watch.” Her face grew hotter. Why in the hell was she mentioning this to him? It was just conversation after all, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. Just words to say words right now, to keep the flow going.

“I didn’t realize you liked horror.”

It was less about liking horror and more about sitting on the couch with Morty and cuddle up next to him when the scary parts happened. He always wrapped his arm around her like he was going to protect her, but she thought it was cute. Morty did some cute things sometimes, especially around her.

“Y-yeah, it’s okay.” Now she was sweating again, trying to steer the conversation somewhere else. They’d been studying for a good hour and a half, and her focus was starting to wane. It was only going to get worse if he asked her useless questions about her interests like this. Why did he even care? Maybe he didn’t, maybe he was just trying to make conversation too.

Ugh, she never knew how to respond to him. It was made even more awkward by the fact he hadn’t noticed he was pressed up against her like this, making her feel suffocated in her seat.

It felt like a lifetime passed before Teacher finally backed away from his seat, moving the desk away from Morticia and standing. She finally felt like she could breathe, but didn’t dare let him know she was close to holding her breath that whole time. Her cheeks gushed red, but she could feel her whole body cooling down now that she wasn’t so close to him. God, that was just uncomfortable.

“I don’t think we need tutoring tomorrow.”

She started. “Wh-why?”

“Unless you want it?” In one quick motion, he settled back down to his desk and began tidying up the area. “I wasn’t going to assign anything other than studying what we’ve gone over. I have a meeting to attend tomorrow, so I was going to let class out early anyway. Well, I would announce that tomorrow, but.” He smiled at her. “You’re here now. It wouldn’t hurt to let you know.”

Yet again, her cheeks flushed as she scrambled to gather her notebooks, making extra sure she put Morty’s pencil back in her backpack. She wasn’t going to forget anything else, let alone something he let her borrow.

“But, if you want to come by tomorrow anyway, I could leave the meeting early.”

She felt her whole stomach lurch at that, for some reason. “N-no, I-I-I’ll be fine. I-I think I can handle studying by my—by myself.” At least she planned to study with Morty, since they were in the same class and everything. He would know the material better than her anyway. Besides, if left up to her, she would no doubt procrastinate and end up playing games with Roomie.

“Are you sure?”

Slinging her backpack around her shoulder, she gave him a vigorous nod, but maybe too vigorous. “Th-thank you for what you’ve done, b-but, I can’t ask you to leave a-a-a meeting like that.”

“I don’t mind. Really.” His stare was earnest, but she felt the nerves piling into her anyway. Something about the way he was looking at her was making her really uncomfortable, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“N-no, I can do this.”

“Of course, Miss Smith. I’m confident in your abilities.”

Before she could exit the room, he stopped her one last time.

“Try not to stress out so much about this. It’s a smaller test, but if you’re confident, you’ll be fine.”

She nodded again, just wanting to get out of the room right now. “Thank you…” Was all she could think to say as she rounded the corner once she finally stepped through the door, and it was instant relief. She didn’t know why she’d been stiffening up the entire time she was in there—or trying not to breathe while too close to him, but being out in the hallway like this, she finally relaxed a little.

That had to be the most uncomfortable tutoring session she’d ever been through. And she didn’t even know why. It wasn’t just because he was leaning on her a little too much without noticing, but something about the way the air felt, like it was way too thick and she couldn’t breathe properly in it. Maybe she just got too heated from being outside like that, or maybe the whole thing was wearing her down from having to study so much in such a short time span that she was getting tired of sitting in a desk all damn day.

At least this would be over soon.

* * *

 

Ugh.

That summed up how Morticia’s night was going. Just _ugh_.

Since she didn’t have to go to tutoring today, she invited Morty over to study, but she was having such a hard time keeping focus, it wasn’t even funny. Morty was sitting on the floor of her bedroom while she sat cross-legged on her bed, pouring over the information in front of her as though that would will it to make any more sense. Despite her tutoring sessions with Teacher, this shit still wasn’t making much sense to her, even though she lied and told him it did. This was all hopeless, she was going to fail, flunk out, and get kicked out of school where she would live on the streets with the other failure Mortys.

The more she looked at her own scribbly handwriting in the notebook, the less any of it made sense. If she didn’t get her act together and fucking focus, then all the tutoring would have been for nothing. She didn’t want to fail now, not when Teacher had put so much faith in her, and especially since he took time out of his day to do this with her. He could have been doing something else with his time, but no, he chose to waste his time on her when she wasn’t even worth it.

“Morti?” The sound of Morty’s voice drew her from her thoughts, as she looked down at him from his position on the floor. “If you want, we could—you know.” He blushed. “Take turns asking each other questions if that would help you?”

She smiled. This is the reason he came over in the first place—to help her stupid ass study for this. It wasn’t like he needed any help, Morty was already making straight A’s, as far as she knew. “Yeah, we can.” Pulling herself up from the bed, Morticia gripped her notebook, taking a moment to glance off to the window where her violet sat. It had stagnated over the past few days, which she guessed was...good? It hadn’t gotten any worse, but not any better. The little brown spots on the petals were visible even from her position on the floor.

Handing her notebook off to Morty, he gave her a soft smile before opening it, his eyes widening when he saw the extra pages Teacher had written in for her, along with additional notes. “Wow, you _have_ been busy all week, haven’t you?”

She nodded. “I’m ready for this t-to be over so bad.” She sighed, leaning back in her spot from on the floor and yawning in a bit of an over dramatic fashion. “I don’t think I’ve ever studied so much in my life.”

Morty let out a small laugh as he flipped back in the notebook, to the page where the lectures started. “Just think of all the relaxing you can do when you pass this test.”

“I just want pizza and scary movies and soda right now. I don’t care about passing.” Morticia fiddled with her socks as he propped the notebook up, scanning his eyes through the page as though trying to find something to question her about.

“You should! Passing isn’t easy, but if we graduate, we’ll get to move up in the world.”

She frowned at his words, not all too eager at all to move up in this ‘world’. “You mean move up in the Citadel.” Sighing, she crossed her legs again as she propped her chin up with the back of her hand.

“It’s all we have. And it’s better than being on the streets, you know?”

She shrugged. Honestly at this point, she wasn’t sure which was worse. Moving up and having to kiss ass at the Citadel for the rest of her life, or suffering on the streets instead. It would be nice to just go back home to a normal life, normal school, and a normal family. Not a planet where she was constantly surrounded by other versions of herself and had no one to relate to when she was the only girl.

They studied for a while, or at least until Morticia started complaining she was hungry, where they took a break to get pizza with Roomie. That was probably the only good part about the whole night, but Morticia couldn’t really enjoy the taste with the looming threat of tomorrow’s test hanging over her head like that. This was a first for pizza not to taste good but damn. All they had done was study today, and she was ready for the sweet release of sleep.

“Don’t worry.” Morty gave her a reassuring smile as they packed up their books for the night, Morticia already stretching out on her bed because she was ready for sleep now. “You’ll do fine. I believe in you.”

She snorted at his words, that, while corny, were also super cute, and she smiled back at him. “Thanks. I-I’ll try my best.”

“That’s all you can do.”

After Morticia placed down the blankets and gave him an extra pillow, Morty settled down onto the floor to spend the night. Sometimes they did this, while rarely, because the security guard Rick who patrolled the school called them out on not being in their dorms when they were supposed to, but Morticia and Morty had been getting away with it every once in a while, so they found no harm in having a sleepover at least once every couple weeks. As long as the Ricks didn’t find out, who cared.

With the lights turned off and the room being encased in darkness, Morticia fell asleep almost instantly, barely even hearing when Morty told her goodnight from the floor.

* * *

 

 

The entire week had been a horribly slow trudge of studying. Constant studying all week. Every day was like waking up to another torrent of studying and having to sit in one spot for several hours with no wiggle room. It was torture.

But Friday was the day Morticia woke up and found herself terrified for once. Why out of all the times she’d complain it wasn’t even worth it, because she didn’t care if she wound up on the streets, then did she care if she passed this test or not? It was stupid for one thing, but Morty was there with her as they woke up early, or early enough that they could fix some breakfast and chat a little before heading over to the school.

He tried to get her to eat, but Morticia felt too nauseated to eat. Yeah, it would be good in the long run, but right now, she couldn’t stomach anything, not even a glass of milk or water. She wanted to wait for this stupid test to be over before she even gave herself that kind of luxury.

As she brushed her teeth, washed her face, and pulled her hair up in a ponytail that morning, she took a long look at herself in the mirror. Tired, worn out, sick of this bullshit and ready for the weekend to get here as fast as it could. That’s exactly what her face said just displayed in front of her.

Even when they got to school that morning, Morty still trying to give her reassurance that she totally had this and this test would be easy, it only made her sick. Of course, he was only trying to help, but it just wasn’t the best time. She didn’t have the heart to tell him he was only making her feel worse, but.

“Here.” He followed her to her locker, his expression shy as always, his cheeks coated with blush as he stood up behind her while she gathered her books. “I have a good luck charm for you.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “A good luck charm?”

He nodded, his face growing redder by the second. “Yeah. H-hold out your hand.”

Morticia did as she was told, extending her hand and expecting him to drop something into her palm, like an extra pencil or an eraser. Instead, Morty grabbed her hand, holding onto it for the second he took to lean into her, and quickly kissed her on the mouth. “You’re going to do fine today, okay?”

Morticia’s cheeks were afire, but she smiled back at him. “Y-yeah.”

And before either of them could move, there was the unmistakable voice behind her when she heard him. “Miss Smith?”

She whirled to see Teacher standing right. _There_. And she blushed even harder at the fact he probably saw all that gushy shit Morty just did, and felt her face grow hot, knowing it was completely red at this point. “G-good morning, T-Teacher, we were—”

But, he cut her off. “This isn’t the time to be fooling around in the hallway. Get to class before you’re late.”

His voice threw her off so far. This was the first time she’d ever heard Teacher actually...snap at her? Before. Even in his expression, she could see how hard pressed he was, how annoyed he was at something, and maybe he was just in a bad mood today, but holy shit.

All it took was for him to say one thing like that to her and Morticia was intimidated by him all over again, forgetting all those times he was nice to her during tutoring and remembering he was the giant asshole all the students hated.

He stared over at Morty for a few seconds too long, long enough that she noticed, and Morticia could have sworn she saw how he looked at him then. As if Morty was doing something really wrong, and Teacher was about to kick him straight out of school and onto the streets himself. There was that much fire behind his eyes.

Holy shit, was kissing in the halls really that big of a deal? She’d seen other Mortys do it, so it couldn’t have been against the rules or anything. Maybe Teacher was just pissed off about something else and taking it out on them. She didn’t know. Or really care at this point, but she caved under his glare and gathered her books as fast as she could before scurrying into the class, Morty on her heels the whole time. Obviously, he was flustered about it too, and she could see how red his face got at the fact they’d been caught doing something so gushy like that.

Even as she sat in her desk, pencil out, prepared for this test, she couldn’t help but notice how much of a bad mood Teacher was in. It made it feel like the entire week that had passed by was some fantasy she just dreamt up where he was kind to her, but now the dream was over and she was back in the real world. Back where he scared the piss out of everyone.

And he looked over at her then, glaring right at her. She froze up, thrown off by his expression like that. To look at her in such a way, to actually glare at her like that. Holy shit, what did she do wrong? Morticia had to break the gaze she was holding and pretend she didn’t notice, but she felt the nausea in her stomach rear up even more at the sight of him looking at her that way. Had she done something wrong? Offended him somehow? The fuck did she do to make Teacher look at her that way?

She racked her brain, trying to remember anything she could have possibly done to make him mad at her—because there was no denying he was glaring right at her. He was pissed off at her for some reason. She’d done something wrong.

Her hands were trembling even as the test was passed back to her from the Morty in front, and she passed the stack of papers back behind her, staring at the words on the page and trying to focus long enough to remember now wasn’t the time to be getting upset over something like that when there was a test to pass. One look at the questions and her chest tightened up. None of them were multiple choice, it was all explanations, which always sucked ass, but she scanned the rest of the page for any questions she might recognize at all.

She remembered him talking about this. But, the specifics were gone on her. With her hands shaking once again, she started writing anything and everything she knew about it down in the little space she was given to write. It wouldn’t hurt to be as detailed as possible, and maybe he wanted that. She sucked at bullshitting tests like this. It was better to give them multiple choice where she knew for a fact she’d gotten something wrong.

The air felt thick and thicker, the longer she sat there writing out answers to questions she didn’t actually know the answer to. It felt like she’d been seated at her desk for hours, when she knew it was only thirty minutes at this point. Maybe not even that. But, she looked up, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose when she noticed him.

Teacher was staring at her, and her cheeks flushed red immediately as she tried to make out like she wasn’t looking up at him. Holy fuck, why was he looking at her like that? He looked so mad, or maybe not mad, but the way he was looking at her—she definitely felt the animosity from his stare. No wonder the tension in the room was thick—he was staring at her the whole time.

Just what the fuck had she done to piss him off this bad? She didn’t go to tutoring yesterday, but he had been in agreement with that. He told her to just work harder when she got home that night—and she had. She and Morty studied for hours, stopping only to eat dinner when they could. She studied so hard for this, harder than she’d ever studied for anything in her life. Surely, he wasn’t mad at her for skipping tutoring?

Trying as hard as she could to ignore that fact, Morticia focused on her test. She was almost done, and the Mortys around her had started standing from their seats to hand in their tests before leaving for lunch. She almost started shaking in her seat, trying as hard as she could to focus on the questions in front of her and not what everyone else was doing. It was hard to articulate her thoughts into words like this—but she just wrote everything down she could think of.

Finally, she scribbled the last of her answer down for the final question and let out a breath, trying to will some relaxation into her, but she wouldn’t be able to relax until he actually graded it. Standing from her seat, she gripped her backpack in one hand, the test in the other, and approached his desk.

He was no longer glaring at her, but had started grading the tests that were handed to him. When she handed the paper off to him, he lifted his head long enough to give her a hard stare—thought not glaring like he was.

Morticia bit back the urge to flinch away from him, but opted instead to swallow and wet her throat. She wanted so bad to ask him if she’d done something wrong, but it would be silly to bring up in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t even her—but no, he was definitely staring straight at her. It could always be that she read him wrong and he was just in a bad mood about something else, and happened to be wearing his emotions on his sleeve that day, but. She couldn’t help but feel he was directing this all at her.

Maybe after class, she would try to meet with him and ask. But, that would probably be a bad idea. He seemed like the type to want his space, and she would just be intruding in on that. God, she really didn’t know what to do, she just wanted to know why he was so mad at her, what she did wrong, so she could apologize.

She handed off the test without any further incident, and hurried out of the class, clutching at her pack and feeling flustered. When she arrived at the cafeteria, Morty waved to her from a nearby table and she seated next to him.

“How do you think you did?”

She wasted no time in saying, “I-I think Teacher’s mad at me.”

At her accusation, Morty arched his eyebrows before taking a sip of his coffee. “Mad at you? The hell would he be mad at you for?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Th-th-that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“He’s just a grumpy old man, he’s probably mad about something else and taking it out on us is what he does.” Morty shrugged, setting his coffee down to pick at the bagel he’d bought.

“But…” He was staring straight at her—there was no denying that.

“Don’t worry about it. You should eat something now, you didn’t eat breakfast.” As he said this, Morty broke off half his bagel and handed one half to her.

Morticia took it, though still didn’t have her appetite back, especially not after that, she ate it anyway. Morty was always too nice to her, even when she was worried about something like this, he just smiled and tried to lighten the mood.

“You’re still on for scary movies tonight, right?”

That perked her up a little. “Yeah!” That’s right. She could look forward to something like that once all this was over. She’d get to hang out with Morty, goof off for the weekend, and then worry about school on Monday.

* * *

 

The paper was placed down in front of her, and Morticia held her breath, not liking how Teacher placed it face down, as though sparing her the embarrassment that she had failed and not letting anyone else see the giant F plastered on the front. Turning the page over, Morticia’s breath choked in her throat when she saw.

An A.

Holy shit, she made an A? Her hands started trembling again as she gripped the paper, feeling like she was about to cry from relief, and couldn’t help the smile that formed on her face. An A. Morticia made an A. This had to be her first A, at least here at the academy. Holy shit, she was beside herself, the butterflies in her stomach growing—before she noticed a little note written by Teacher next to the giant A.

_‘Meet me after class.’_

Her stomach rolled into a knot, but maybe he just wanted to congratulate her on the A? She didn’t know why her first thought was of something bad, because what reason did he have to say anything bad to her? Surely, he didn’t think she cheated, right? Morticia struggled all week long with him, and it finally paid off. All the stupid tutoring actually paid off, and she could feel satisfied from that in itself.

Afternoon class felt like it zipped by for once, and when the bell rang, Morticia began to gather her things up as Morty stopped by her desk, giving her a smile. “Ready to go?”

“Um.” She looked off to the side, fumbling for her stuff as she packed it all up. “T-Teacher wanted to see me after class and talk to me, so I’ll just meet you at the dorm, okay?”

Morty rolled his eyes. “Really? The hell does he want?”

She shrugged. “I-I don’t know. Probably to talk about the test.”

“You passed, right?”

For once, her face lit up with a smile. “Yeah! I made an A.”

Morty’s face also lit up. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it.”

Everyone started to slowly pile out, until Morty was the only one left behind, and he gave Morticia a thumbs up before waving bye and disappearing out the door down the hall.

She was now alone with him again, and sat at her desk, the knot once again returning to her stomach. Teacher stood from his desk, but only moved over to the door to close it. Morticia started sweating, wondering what in the world it could be that he wanted to close the door like that.

“Miss Smith.”

She jumped at the sound of her name, but tried to remain calm as she looked up at him. His face was still hard to read, but he had a scowl permanently etched in his expression now. “Y-yes?” She was nervous again, hoping he didn’t accuse her of cheating to get an A like that. For once, she studied and did the best she could.

“You studied hard and received an A.” It wasn’t any kind of accusation, it was just a fact. She nodded. “If you keep up the good work, you’ll bring your grades back up before the semester ends.” Again, she nodded, but then Teacher slowly walked over until he was standing right next to her desk, looking down at her. “However.”

She gulped, ready for whatever it was he was about to say to dispel all of that.

“I don’t think it’s wise for you to hang around Mortys like that.”

She blinked, not expecting that at all. “Wh-what?”

“You’ve been doing well all week, but that Morty you hang out with—I think he’s distracting you, causing you to fail like you have.”

“No, I—” She stood from her desk then, gripping her backpack by the strap as she did so. “Teacher, I was the one who—” She was trying to admit to him it was her fault, she was the one who didn’t study properly, she was the one who put it off and played games instead.

But, he cut her off. “Mortys like that are just going to bring you down. You don’t want to end up on the streets, do you? He’s not good for you.”

“He helped me study.” She was getting heated now, her need to defend Morty coming out as she stood her ground. “H-he was the one who stayed up with me all night helping me study for this. He’s not a—not a—he works hard too.”

Teacher then reached out, and gripped her by the arms, causing Morticia to freeze before seizing up as he dug his nails into her, as he glared down at her. “Stop _fucking_ hanging out with him, Morti.”

And his words—his words almost made her choke. She had never been called that by him before, and it made her sick. Nobody was allowed to call her that except for Morty—and her Rick. Teacher never, ever called her that before, and her chest tightened at the sound of it coming out of his mouth, because it was the exact same voice as her Rick—he looked just like him. Just _like_ him.

She pulled back from his hold on her, trying to wriggle her arms out from his grip. “Let me go. That hurts.”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Instead of letting go, he moved into her, until he was right up on her, until she could feel his body pressing up against hers, and Morticia sucked in air to try and remember to breathe. “I’ve seen Mortys come and go, I know which ones are doomed to fail and which ones are going to grow up to be little assholes. If you don’t stop right now, he’s just going to drag you down with him.”

There were tears in her eyes as he continued to hold onto her like that, as he continued squeezing her arms, but Morticia couldn’t let him badmouth Morty like that. “He’s not like that! He—he studies harder than anyone and he’s nice and he’s nice to me, and—”

He pushed his body up against her, almost bucking her backwards as he did so, and Morticia’s words choked in her throat when he did so, when he wouldn’t let go, and she was getting suffocated.

“Morti.” When he spoke again, his words were softer, but she could hear the unmitigated emotion he was holding back behind it, like he was about to explode, like he was ready to strangle her. But, he pulled her up, until she was forced to look at him, at his lidded expression, and the...blush? On his face.

It terrified her, to hear her name like that, to hear him call her name like that in such a voice, and she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t get out of his hold.

“Morti, I—” His voice cracked, and he loosened the grip on her long enough to give her a look, the guiltiest, yet genuine look she’d ever seen from him. “Morti, I—did you know that I touch myself to you every night?”

And there was no way she’d heard that right.

No goddamn way she heard that right.

Morticia couldn’t even respond, or move anymore, but stared back at him, the horror slowly creeping in the more she looked at his expression, that hungry expression, like he was about to devour her.

“I-I knew you were special. Y-you know, it’s rare for Morticias to even be here, but then you come along, and they place you in _my_ class. My class, Morti. And you sit there in your desk all day long, without even knowing what you’re doing to me, how hard it is not to leave class constantly because I want to think about you while I’m doing it. I want all those little shits to leave, because you’re here.”

The more he spoke, the worse she could feel that awful feeling creep down into her stomach, until she wanted to vomit. This had to be a dream, right? There was no fucking way he was saying this to her, but there was no denying the blush on his face. The way he looked at her—the way Morty sometimes looked at her, and she couldn’t help it. Morticia started crying, unable to move, unable to look away from him and block out the horrible things he was saying to her.

“No, no, no no no, Morti, don’t be scared. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He sounded desperate now, his words rushed and he only leaned into her further. “You don’t have to be scared, because I’m going to help you, okay? You don’t have to come to tutoring anymore, if you don’t want to. I can pass you. It’d be so easy, nobody would question me if I did, Morti.” He laughed, a horribly dry, forced laugh, but the blush didn’t leave his face as he continued staring at her, holding onto her. “Just.” And he pushed his leg into her, until she felt it when he tried to move it just ever so slightly into her crotch. “Morti, if you’ll just…”

But, she panicked. Morticia panicked, and pushed against him, causing him to stumble when he didn’t expect it. Her voice was all but horrified when her words finally crawled their way out. “No! No, no! Get away from me!” He wouldn’t let go, and she was crying, panicking, not believing that he just admitted he touched himself to her at night. That he was thinking of her like that this entire time. That he was just a fucking creep like the rest of the Ricks around here.

“Morti!” His voice rose when he yelled at her, and she was struggling to push him off, as he refused to let go of her, refused to move off her long enough that she could breathe again, and she was fucking panicking.

If she didn’t do something now, he was going to— Morticia choked on her sobs at the idea of Teacher holding her down and forcing himself on her. He had all the means right now, he had all the strength and power she didn’t if he wanted to do that.

He wrestled with her as she fought to get him off her, and with a final shove, Morticia broke herself from his hold, not wasting a goddamn second before tearing away from him, ripping the door open, and flying down the hallway. His voice wailed behind her, calling out her name, but she didn’t stop, or turn around to see if he was following her. She just ran.

Morticia ran like her life was on the line as she raced down the hall, almost falling down the stairs as she jumped what she could to get the fuck away from him, as far away from him as she could. She was still crying, her eyes blurry with terrified tears, even as she found herself out on the courtyard, the voices of the Mortys playing baseball loud enough that it drowned out her horrified gasping and desperate attempts to suck in air as she ran. She didn’t stop, not until she ripped the door to her dorm open and locked herself inside, slamming the door as she did so.

Morty and Roomie were on the couch, and both jumped at the sound of her slamming the door, Morty on his feet in seconds when he saw that she was crying.

“Morti?!” He was at her side in seconds, holding onto her, cradling her, and she could do nothing but grip at his clothes as she desperately clung to him and pulled him close to her. “What happened? Morti?”

But, she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say it was because Teacher had come onto her, tried to force himself on her, and admitted he touched himself to her at night. How the fuck was she supposed to explain that to him? It was just so…

She couldn’t even admit it to herself that’s what just happened. This was all a nightmare, but it wasn’t happening. Morty was here, Morty was trying his best to comfort her as she sat shaking in his arms, trying not to break down crying again, and he pat the back of her head, even as Roomie came over, also concerned, but she couldn’t tell either of them why.

This was all some bad dream that would go away, Morticia knew it. It was a bad dream.


	4. Chapter 4

The weekend was fucking horrible.

Most of the time, Morticia sat by herself on the corner of the couch, staring at the tv, but not actually watching it. It was just a way to occupy her mind with something without having to actually put effort into thinking about anything.

Morty was worried. He’d sit down next to her, wrap his arm around her and ask her what was wrong, but each time the topic came up, Morticia couldn’t respond. She didn’t know how. What the fuck did she think she was going to say to him? That Teacher came onto her? That he spouted a bunch of nonsense to her about how he’d been touching himself to her secretly this whole time? And fuck, what was she supposed to think now, knowing this? She didn’t know what to do, or what to think, knowing that the entire time she’d been in class, idling away and trying her hardest to impress him because she wanted to prove she wasn’t a piece of shit student—but then he goes and does this. And hell, he probably had been the one stealing her stuff this entire time, she was just too stupid to realize.

Morticia had to get out of that class. She’d been stewing in the idea all weekend, how she would go to the counselor’s office on Monday, and request to be transferred out of class. Hell, if they could kick her out of school at this point, she wouldn’t even care if it came to that. The idea was so stupid, she doubted any of the counselors gave a shit about which class she was in, but it was worth a shot.

Even if it came to that, she didn’t know how she would explain to Morty if she randomly stopped showing up to class. And at this point, she definitely wasn’t going to show up on Monday. Teacher could go fuck himself if he thought she was just going to sit in class like nothing was wrong and he hadn’t done what he’d done.

And Morty was trying so, so hard to get her to tell him what was wrong—but no matter how many times he attempted, she just couldn’t. She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t admit Teacher had come onto her.

It was fucking humiliating. What would he say if he ever found that out? What would any of them say if they found out he’d done that to her? Maybe she was the stupid one for not realizing it before, and for it to come to this, to be cornered by him in the classroom like that, she didn’t know what to do. Other than beg the counselors to take her out of that classroom. Maybe plop her in a room with a Rick who wasn’t going to do that to her.

She shivered at the idea of him looking at her that way, the entire time she’d been sitting in her desk, daydreaming or doodling without a care in the world. And Teacher was at the front of the class, probably looking at her and thinking of her that way. She thought back to the tutoring sessions and cringed at the idea that he could have done something—it would have been so easy for him, he could have held her down and done anything to her while they were alone.

She swallowed, trying to wet her throat.

When he moved up against her so close, she had no idea. All the times he made what was seemingly an innocent gesture, but now it made her sick to know he had been getting off to it the whole time. How could she be so stupid?

It was Sunday night, and Morticia was curled up on the couch again, staring blankly at the tv as the news station droned on about the weather once again. There was a call for a thunderstorm, but of course, it was going to be a controlled thunderstorm, so nobody had anything to worry about. As she sat with her knees bunched up to her chin, Morticia could feel the pang of hunger in her stomach when it started growling, but she hadn’t had an appetite all weekend.

Roomie had been worried about her too, and she felt the couch dip as he walked over and sat beside her. “Th-there’s one slice of pizza left. Do you want it?”

She shook her head, not bothering to look over at him, just continued staring at the stupid weather report.

“Okay. Um. We don’t have a whole lot left. It’ll be awhile before I can get in touch with someone and get more junk food.”

She nodded. That’s how it always worked, though. Neither of them had jobs, therefore, neither of them had any money to go to the store and purchase junk food, so Roomie had to always pull some strings with Mortys he knew on the street to get them stocked up on junk food whenever they ran out. But, at this point, Morticia wondered if working out on the streets and actually having a job that paid minimum wage would be better than sticking around this place any longer.

“Um.” Roomie took a breath before continuing. “Are you sure you’re okay? You haven’t spoken about what happened all weekend. I-I don’t want to push you, b-but we’re both worried.”

Morticia sighed, feeling stupid all over again when he brought it up. “Nothing happened.” Her lie was so halfassed, it wasn’t even halfassed. Barely quarterassed at this point. It was just bullshit. “I’m just not feeling well.”

“Right. People come bursting into their dorms sobbing and freaking out because they don’t feel well.”

“I saw a giant bug and it scared me.” The stupid lies just wouldn’t stop. She didn’t care.

“Did someone hurt you?”

“No.” Now, that wasn’t really a lie. Teacher didn’t actually hurt her, not physically anyway. It was true, she freaked out and panicked a little more than she would have liked, and the more she thought about it, the more embarrassed she got over it. But, she wasn’t sure how else she could have handled that situation. When she thought of talking to him calmly and trying to reason with him, the image of him potentially holding her down and actually hurting her made her sick to her stomach all over again. She could have fought him off and slapped him, maybe kicked him between his legs, but everything she thought of now only made her feel stupid when she thought of the things she _should_ have done.

“Did some punk ass Morty come up to you and harass you?” Roomie balled his hands into fists then. “You can tell us. We’ll make sure nobody bothers you.”

Morticia snorted through her nose at the idea of Morty and Roomie beating up on another Morty just for her sake. “No, I promise.” She leaned back then, straightening out her legs and letting them drape over the couch as she reached up to tug her hair behind her ear. “I-It’s silly, really. I overreacted to something, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, okay? You guys don’t have to worry about me, e-even though I appreciate it.”

As she looked over at him to give him a reassuring look, he frowned at her, obviously not believing her, but he too leaned back on the couch and turned his attention to the tv. “We’re here for you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious. If someone’s bothering you, just—”

“I’m serious too.” She gave him a smile before pushing her glasses up to the bridge of her nose. “Thank you.”

They sat in silence afterward, the tv droning on in the background as the news went off and instead played a commercial for cereal. Morticia stared at the screen, not invested, not paying attention, just staring at it, her stomach curling into a knot at the idea of going into the councilor’s office tomorrow to see what could be done for her. She doubted anything, really, but it was worth a shot at least.

She would try anything at this point.

* * *

 

Monday morning sucked more than the weekend did and Morticia didn’t bother setting her alarm, as she didn’t plan to go to class that morning. If Morty questioned her about it, she would just tell him she got sick and had to stay in. He wouldn’t question her that much, just worry over her a lot, as he was prone to do, but she got dressed anyway, changing into the school uniform and brushing the tangles from her hair, pulling it back in her hairband before making her way out the door. Roomie didn’t seem to be there that morning, and she wondered if he actually went to class for once, but didn’t take time to dwell on it as she approached the double doors of the school.

She hadn’t been back in this place since Friday, having been holed up in her room the entire time. It made her stomach lurch at the idea Teacher was on the floor above her, teaching class at this very moment. She clenched her hand into a fist and took a breath before opening the door, her insides feeling like they were full of lead. It was hard the first time she ever stepped foot in this place, but this was a different kind of difficult, because she knew that at all costs, she wanted to avoid running into Teacher.

The building was eerily quiet, as classes were going on now, and she was only a few feet away from the counselor’s office. The door was ajar, light pouring into the hall and she heard the distant voices of the Ricks inside laughing at some joke one of them made. Biting onto her lip, she took another breath before opening the door and making her way up to the desk.

There were two Ricks inside, one of them stationed behind a computer, while the other one, the one currently at the desk she was standing at, stopped talking and gave her a confused stare as she felt the sweat accumulate at the base of her neck already. He looked her up and down as if the mere sight of her was perplexing, but she told herself it was only because classes were going on and he was judging her for skipping.

“What’s up?”

It was weird to hear him be so nonchalant like that, but Morticia fumbled with her words, not sure how she was actually supposed to bring this up to him. She managed to spit out, “Um—um,” a few times before actually forming a coherent sentence. “I-I was w-w-wondering if you c-could help me?”

He shrugged. “Depends. What’s the problem?”

The problem was her teacher was a horny piece of shit who came onto her and she was too scared to even be in the same building as him, but she couldn’t say that—no goddamn way. If one of them was willing to stoop to that level with her, who was to say they would even believe her? Even if she came out and accused him of harassment, none of these Ricks would believe her. She was a Morty. And Teacher had more authority than she could even fathom. All he had to do was shake his head no and they would take his word over hers. She had no leg to stand on in this situation.

So, she lied. “I-I need t-to transfer out of a-a class.”

The Rick in front of her arched his eyebrow, giving her a bit of a sarcastic look. “Kind of late in the semester to be doing that, don’t you think?” Then he leaned back in his chair, letting out a loud, obviously not-getting-paid-enough-to-do-this kind of sigh. “Any reason why?”

She clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into her palms, but she looked away from his face, at his condescending expression and how the other Rick behind him seemed to be holding in laughter, as though he enjoyed seeing her squirm like this. “I-I just need to be taken out, okay?”

“Okay.” He said it so bluntly, she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, that he would just let her off the hook with a sloppy excuse like that, and she watched as he wheeled his chair over to a nearby computer and began typing away. “What’s your name?”

“Morticia Sm—”

“Your dimension name, duh.”

Her cheeks flushed red as the Rick behind him let out a cackle and she lowered her head. “O-oh, um, dimension M-259.” She continued trying to ignore the other Rick as the one in front of her typed away at his keyboard. After a few seconds of clicking a few links here and there, he finally settled on something and nodded.

“Morticia Smith, dimension M-259, you’re in Rick A-307’s class.”

She nodded, though wasn’t sure if it was actually a question, but more of a statement.

Rick squinted at his computer screen before clicking on a few more things and mumbled under his breath to himself before finally speaking to her again. “Looks like you’re doing fine in his class.”

She blinked. What? “Wh-what do you mean?” He must have pulled up the wrong file. She’d done nothing but fail in his class all semester—well, except for that last test. Even then, she questioned the legitimacy of it, knowing what Teacher had on his mind the whole time. She shivered, trying to will the thoughts away and focus on what was in front of her.

He shrugged. “You’ve got mostly B’s and A’s, so what’s the problem? Most Mortys come complaining because they can’t handle that guy, saying he’s too strict and whatnot, but you’re one of the few students who’s passing.”

She shook her head. “Th-that’s the wrong file. I’ve been doing horrible in his class all semester. I’m failing.”

With another arch of his eyebrow, Rick gripped his computer monitor before turning the screen around to let her see the file. At the top was her name, in huge bold letters, followed by her dimension and below it, a list of all the tests they’d had and—just as he’d said—passing grades next to all of them.

Morticia’s chest tightened. “He fixed it. H-he’s putting the wrong grades in.”

Rick shrugged, pulling the monitor back to face him. “That’s something you’re gonna have to talk to him about. We can’t pull you from the class without a good excuse. Even with it being this far in the semester, you’re kind of up the creek.”

She leaned into desk, almost over it to him. “B-but--!”

Yet again, he gave her a look that suggested he really didn’t give a shit and was tired of this conversation and he’d literally rather be doing anything else than talking to her. “Why don’t you talk to your teacher about this, if you’re concerned about your grades? I’m sure he’d be willing to help you.”

“It’s not the grades! It’s because he—” Her cheeks flushed again, and she bit her lip, stopping herself from almost saying what she did. Rick only leaned back in his chair, waiting for her to finish and letting out a sigh when she froze, not being able to continue.

“Because what?”

Morticia let out a breath before looking down at the desk she was leaning over, trying to compose herself and focus on the grooves in the wood and not the way he was staring at her. “I-I just need to be transferred out, okay? It doesn’t matter who, or where, even if it’s at another school district, I just need to get out of that class, okay?” Now she was getting desperate, and panicking, as she spilled it all out in rapid session, her hands beginning to shake as she gripped the desk she was leaning on, face too hot and too flushed to even look up anymore.

“Well, sorry, but there’s nothing we can do for you, sweetie.” And he actually sounded genuinely sorry, not shooting her a sarcastic answer or talking down to her, but his words only made her feel worse. As she looked back up at him, Morticia could feel the tears coming to her eyes, but she blinked them away, refusing to cry in front of them.

He seemed to sense how upset she was, if not for the look on her face, how absolutely miserable she must’ve looked, but the Rick in the chair let out another sigh, though this one sounded more resigned than anything. “All I can tell you is to make it through the rest of the semester. It’s only a couple more months. You can handle that, right? Then when you’re out of that class, we can see what we can do about transferring you to a different class, okay?”

Instead of arguing, Morticia just nodded, lowering her head once again in resignation as she turned to leave the room. The air had stagnated with the conversation until she could almost feel it, feel it seep into her lungs and choke her, but she made her way out into the hallway before letting the frustrated tears finally fall from her face. When she was out of eyesight from the office enough, she pulled her glasses from her face and wiped her eyes with her arm, angry at herself for not being smarter and getting something taken care of and angry at them for not helping her, even though she hadn’t come up with a good enough excuse.

And what the fuck was with that bullshit he pulled up on the screen? Why did it show she had good marks all of a sudden? Surely, Teacher couldn’t have predicted she would come here for this very thing and fixed the grades to make it look like she was upset over nothing, right? Though, she wondered if it had been full of F’s, if they would have just let her drop the class altogether without much consequence, but that would have landed her on the streets for sure. Either way she looked at it, Morticia couldn’t win.

She sat leaning against the wall for a good few minutes, trying to stop crying and figure out what the hell she was going to do. There was no goddamn way she would walk back up to that class and face Teacher herself—no fucking way she would do that. She couldn’t get the image of the way his face looked out of her head—the way he looked at her, like he was ready to devour her the moment he got the chance, like he wouldn’t hesitate to hold her down to the floor and do something terrible.

Morticia clutched the fabric of her shirt, trying to will some confidence into herself. Something. Anything at this point. If she told the other Ricks, she doubted they would believe her, and if she told Morty, well. The heat came to her face at the thought of that. That would be humiliating. Either way she looked at it, she was lost. She was going to have to do something herself about this.

And right now, all she could think to do was hide out in her dorm, where he couldn’t get to her. She needed to get out of this stupid building. Just being in the school made her sick to her stomach anymore, and she wiped at her face, drying more stray tears off her cheeks before placing her glasses back on and pushing them up her nose. The school would eventually come after her if she skipped too many days, but she needed to formulate some kind of plan right now. Something that involved not coming to this bullshit place anymore.

Just as she pushed off the wall and began to make her way down the hallway toward the entrance, the door to the stairwell in front of her pushed open—and she froze. Like a deer caught in headlights, Morticia slammed on her feet then when Teacher walked through that door, and her first instinct was to stop and freeze at the sight of him.

He froze too, not expecting her there, his hand still on the doorknob, and they both stared at each other for a few seconds that felt like way too long. He opened his mouth then, and all it took was for him to say, “Morti…” in a hushed tone before Morticia turned and bolted, as fast as she could, down the opposite end of the hall.

She didn’t bother looking behind her to see if he had followed her, but she didn’t care. The only thing on her mind was getting the fuck away from him.

He couldn’t have possibly known she was down there, right? There was no way he could have known, that was just a horrible coincidence, right? Morticia felt sick all over again at the thought he was possibly stalking her, but she just ran, trying to block out all the horrible thoughts plaguing her mind when she turned a sharp corner to tear open a corner door that led to the side stairwell, which also led straight outside. She burst through the door, her feet landing on the outdoor sidewalk and didn’t stop running to catch her breath once as she tore through the courtyard, through the ballfield, until she was finally all the way back at her dorm. Once again opening the door, Morticia slammed it once she was inside, locking it just in case Teacher had followed her here and was right behind her, but she sat leaning against the door, now catching her breath and heaving in gulps of air, her legs shaking and ready to collapse.

What the fuck was she going to do? Just what the fuck did she do now? Yet again, she panicked when she saw him, and ended up running away from him, but she couldn’t help it. Just seeing his face, so suddenly like that coming out of the goddamn woodwork frightened her, and she could still feel how hard her heart was pounding in her chest at the mere sight of him.

And the way he said her name—it was like poison. The _way_ he said it, hushed so nobody else around could hear him call her that, it made her sick. Whatever sick thoughts were going through his mind, he was still adamant about this. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been to sit through a whole week of tutoring with him and not notice any of this. Did he look at her during those times? Was he secretly thinking of her like that? How long had he actually been thinking of her like that?

She went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.

What would he have done if he actually managed to keep her in the classroom that day? Would he have gone through with it? Morticia shivered. Would he have forced himself on her? She had been alone with him that entire week, he had all the liberty to do what he wanted with her. At any given moment, he could have gotten up, locked the door, and forced himself onto her.

She walked to the couch and curled up on it again, turning the tv on to drown out her own thoughts. The more she thought about it, the more stupid she felt, because she wasn’t sure if she was overreacting or not.

At some point, she dozed off on the couch, and wasn’t sure how long she sat leaned up against the back, but the sound of the door opening jumped her from sleep and she turned her head to see Roomie and Morty entering. Morty, upon seeing her, was at her side in an instant.

“Hey, why weren’t you in class today?”

She was prepared for this, or had a halfassed lie prepared anyway. “S-sorry, I wasn’t feeling good.”

Reaching out, Morty placed his hand against her forehead and frowned. “You _are_ a little warm. Have you eaten anything today?”

She wanted to lie again and say yes, but she just shook her head no. May as well be honest about something, she figured.

Morty frowned even harder. “You barely ate anything all weekend. Let’s go to the cafeteria, they’re serving spaghetti tonight.”

Morticia shook her head. “N-no, I don’t want to, okay? I still feel bad.”

“You _have_ to eat. Please?”

Morticia sighed. Sometimes, Morty could be so insistent that it was annoying, but she knew he was just looking out for her. He cared. He cared way too much. “I’ll go tomorrow, okay? I’m still nauseous, so even if I do go, I wouldn’t be able to stomach anything.” The truth was that if he had taken her there, she would have eaten, but every time she thought of Teacher, her stomach curled into a knot and only made her not want to eat. She had picked at her food all weekend at the most, but even now, her stomach was growling, but she just didn’t have the urge for any food.

“Are you going to go to class tomorrow?”

She froze. No goddamn way was she going to class. Not tomorrow or any other day, they could kick her out for all she cared, but she just shook her head. “N-no, it’s fine. I-I’ll talk to Teacher about it.” That was definitely a big fatass lie, but it was the best she could come up with.

Morty nodded. “Okay. I’ll go with you then. It won’t be a big deal if I miss a day.”

“You don’t h-have to do that, Morty.”

“I want to!” He then moved into her, wrapping his arms around her shoulder and gave her a hug. “You’re sick, so I gotta take care of you, right?”

Morticia nodded, hugging him back, though she felt guilty about lying to him, she was also grateful he was here. She wouldn’t be alone. Hell, maybe he could help her formulate a plan tomorrow too, if she mentioned transferring out. She didn’t have to say anything about Teacher coming onto her. She could just lie and make out like she was failing so bad it was worthless. Morty was smart. He could help her.

She closed her eyes, feeling so warm in his embrace.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Her stomach was growling by the time she woke up the next morning. The nausea was still present, but Morticia knew she could bite it down long enough to stomach breakfast at least. Morty had stayed the night again, sleeping on the floor and rose with her that morning as they prepared to skip class and hang out in the cafeteria. They dressed in uniform so as to blend into the crowd and not rouse any suspicion, not that either of them cared a whole lot, but the plan was to go in with the crowd and hang out until class started and then they would ditch.

Morticia sighed as they entered the crowded cafeteria that morning, the buzzing of conversation happening all around them at once, way too many voices talking at one to catch a single conversation. They stood in line behind a crowd of Mortys who were talking loudly about baseball or something other, but her Morty gave her a sheepish smile as the line slowly began to die down and they reached the serving area.

“Do you feel better today?”

She nodded, though it was a half lie this time, she didn’t even want to be here, but did so for his sake.

“That’s good.” Morty grabbed a tray, handing her one as they picked off food from the serving bar and filled their trays up. Nothing ever looked too appetizing here, so Morticia just grabbed a waffle and what looked like a pile of scrambled eggs, before they moved up the line and to the cashier Rick who took their cards and charged it to the academy accounts they all had.

Morticia let out an annoyed sigh, wondering how much in the time she’d been here she’d been charged for food so far. They weren’t given any loans or anything at this place, but expected to pay real money for things. Some Mortys just went out and got part time jobs to handle the expenses they had.

The cashier Rick typed in a total for the food she’d gotten, before sliding her card through a little machine next to him, and then frowned at her. “Sorry, your card was declined.”

Morticia frowned back. “Wh-what do you mean it was declined?”

He shrugged. “Just what I said. The system isn’t recognizing it.”

“It’s never been declined before. Th-there isn’t a charge limit, is there?” Now she was panicking a little, her chest tightening up the more the Rick in front of her shook his head, handing her card back.

“No, but it happens sometimes. Just head to the registration office and get them to clear it up for you. Probably a glitch or something.”

Morty perked up from behind her, moving beside her before digging into his pocket to produce his card. “I’ll pay for it, just take my card.”

Rick shook his head. “It’s against school policy to allow another student to pay for someone else’s meal.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“Morty…” Morticia gripped his arm, tugging him along, the nerves only bundling into her stomach the longer they stood here, the longer they risked gathering unwanted attention. “It’s okay. I’ll go get this cleared up, don’t worry about it.” She tugged him harder, hoping he wouldn’t try to white knight for her and make a scene. He was so bad about doing that, especially lately.

“But—” He gave her a pleading look, as he was about to argue, as he was about to continue to give this Rick a piece of his mind, but she cut him off.

“It’s okay, I’ll be back. It’s no big deal.” With a small smile to him, she set the tray of food down before turning and heading out of the cafeteria. This sucked ass, but hopefully what cashier Rick said was true, and it was just a glitch they could fix within five minutes or so. She’d be back in the lunchroom in no time having breakfast with Morty and formulating a plan for what in the fuck to do about this situation.

The registration office was all the way at the other end of the building, and she made damn sure to pace herself as she made her way down that long stretch of hallway, avoiding the stairwell doors in case one of them randomly opened and she had to see his miserable fucking face again. She was on high alert, feeling like she was being watched constantly and on more than one occasion, looked over her shoulder to see if he was there—if he was watching her. But he was nowhere to be found. She hated being in this position, constantly vulnerable and feeling as though someone were watching her, but she couldn’t help it.

She finally reached the office and a nonchalant Rick sat at the desk, tapping a pencil on a sheet of paper that looked as though he’d been doodling on it before she entered. He lazily looked up at her through lidded eyes and if she didn’t know better, would have thought he was hungover just from his appearance.

“Sup?” It was so weird to hear Ricks talk this way when she was used to—well, used to Teacher not being this way. That was fucked up, having gotten used to his rather more pristine way of talking, only to find out he was a fucking pervert which shattered the whole illusion. For all she knew, every Rick in this building was a fucking pervert. Ugh, Morticia shook her head to herself, trying not to think of things like that.

“Um, m-my card is getting declined. Th-they told me to come t-to you.” As she spoke, she held out her academy card, which he took from her, glazing over it before leaning back in his chair and moving over to the computer next to him.

“Mmkay, gimme a sec.” He typed away on the keyboard, and she watched from behind the desk as several things flashed up on the screen, mostly charts of numbers and other stuff she didn’t understand, until he finally landed on a page, and she saw her name and numbers appear at the top of the screen. Rick mumbled something to himself before speaking to her, reading something off the computer. “Hmm, says your card’s been put on hold.” Then he turned back to her. “You getting picked off the Citadel or something?”

She shook her head.

“Huh. That’s weird. Usually we don’t hold accounts unless a Morty is getting booted from the academy or something. Could be a glitch.”

She swallowed, biting the skin from her lip as she did so. “Th-they said it was probably a glitch, a-and you could fix it.”

“Well, let’s see.” More typing, more uncomfortable bouts of silence as Morticia stood there with her hands clenched and stomach curled into a knot as she waited to hear the verdict. Rick finally leaned away from the computer, mumbling again as he clicked something over and over, to no avail, then turned back to her again. “This system’s pretty touchy. Won’t let me recall the hold, since I’m not the original admin who put it on hold to begin with.”

She froze in her spot. “What’s that mean?”

“Means you can wait till the hold goes off in the next week, seven days to be exact, or go talk to the Rick who put you on hold to start with.”

She thought she was going to throw up right then. It couldn’t have been him. He couldn’t have done that. There was no goddamn way Teacher wouldn’t block her card like that so she couldn’t get food.

Rick turned back to the computer, scrolling down a mess of words and numbers before settling on something. “Rick A-307. Maybe it was a mistake? You’ll have to talk to him. Could always have gotten drunk one night and clicked away at some shit, made a mistake. You know how it is.”

At the mention of his name, her stomach coiled until it felt like someone dropped an entire boulder inside of her, and she started sweating again. Why was he doing this to her? Why would he go in and fix her grades to show she was passing his class, but block her card so she couldn’t buy anything to eat the next day? Morticia clutched the fabric of her clothes. Was he trying to starve her? Was he angry at her for running out on him and going to starve her as punishment? There was no way she could go to him and ‘talk’ to him about this—he knew that. He was going to make her suffer by blocking the card so she would have to go without food for seven days.

Was he doing this to force her to come ‘talk’ to him? He knew she wouldn’t come to class. He knew she wasn’t going to just sit her ass down in that chair after what he did to her Friday and expect her to go through the day like nothing was wrong. No, he was going to fuck up shit in the system, block her card, make it where she couldn’t transfer from the class, so she would be forced to come back at some point.

She gripped the fabric of her vest, squeezing the material so hard in her hands, her nails dug through the other side and pinched her palms. If he was punishing her, she had to get out of here fast. She had to come up with something—fast. Right now.

Morticia was so lost in her thoughts she didn’t realize Rick had started talking to her at some point, but she caught the last of his statement. “—talk to him and he’ll fix it, I’m sure it was just a—”

But, she didn’t even let him finish. “Okay.” And she turned and walked out of the room.

With her heart pounding in her chest, she quickened her pace down the hall, until she was far enough away from the room that nobody could hear how hard she was breathing, practically hyperventilating at this point. She took a moment to rest against the wall and catch her breath, her face flushed as she gripped her chest and breathed. It was painful, it was so painful, her heart pounded so hard in her chest from this stress, and what the fuck she was going to do—just what in the fuck was she going to do now? She didn’t know.

She couldn’t go back to the cafeteria with Morty, because this was supposed to be fixed. He was going to want to eat with her, but she couldn’t get food there. If she went back and this wasn’t fixed, he was going to raise hell and wonder why nothing was fixed, and if he found out this was Teacher’s doing—she swallowed to wet her throat. Then he would demand they go talk to him. And she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t be in the same room with him again after this.

She couldn’t have Morty fight her battles for her over and over like this, white knight for her like he was so prone to do—when he’d already done so much for her, but she bit her lip again, biting so hard it was painful. What did she do? What the fuck did she _do_?

She wanted to cry from frustration again. Nobody was going to help her. None of the counselors gave a shit about her, none of the Ricks here gave a shit, and if she accused Teacher of what he did, nobody would believe her. He’d already blocked her card and changed her grades and nobody gave a fuck. Of course, they wouldn’t believe her if she accused him of harassment. He had too much power here.

She wanted to run away to the streets, but what the fuck did she think she was going to accomplish there? She needed a job to support herself. She needed a place to stay, she needed to make a livable wage to afford an apartment far away from here, and that just wasn’t plausible right now. She could run away, but she’d be living on the streets, literally. Out on some alleyway starving to death because she was too stupid to realize her teacher had a thing for her this whole time.

The tears came again as she stood in the hallway, trying so hard not to cry. But, that didn’t matter. No matter what she thought of to fix this, she didn’t know what to do to fix it. Morticia wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get out of this. She was stupid to have let this happen in the first place, after all.

But, she couldn’t go back to Morty, not after that. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell any of them. So, she gathered herself and headed back to her dorm, shutting herself inside and raided the cabinets for any scrap of food Roomie might have left for her. There were only cans of soda, which she tore open and drank at least two at once, but the only food were random condiments in the fridge. Hardly a meal. But, she didn’t care. Morticia opened the bottle of ketchup and squirted it directly in her mouth. She grimaced at the taste, as it wasn’t meant to be eaten this way, but she didn’t care. It was something. Anything to put in her stomach for now, and she would take it. She had to.

Why the fuck did she have to get nauseous over the weekend and refuse the food that was given to her then? Why did she have to be stupid about it and not take any of the pizza that was offered to her? Any of the potato chips the guys kept trying to get her to eat? She was so stupid.

So _fucking_ stupid.

And now, her stomach was growling, cramping from not having a decent meal for almost three days at this point. And if she was expected to wait this out for another seven days until her card was reactivated, it made her want to cry again. How the fuck was she supposed to hide this from Morty for seven days? How was she supposed to pretend like she wasn’t hungry for seven days, and that everything was fine?

He was going to want to go to the cafeteria with her and hang out, he was going to want to eat lunch and dinner with her, and she wouldn’t be able to get anything with her card. She was fucked, every way she looked at it.

Placing the bottle of ketchup back in the fridge, Morticia downed the taste in her mouth with a can of soda, feeling the sugar on her mouth as it made her lips stick together. Her stomach just hurt now, with the horrible combination she just fed it, but she tried not to think about it. Everything hurt, but she didn’t know what to do.

Throwing the empty soda can away, she locked herself in her room for the rest of the day, not knowing what to tell Morty, knowing she ditched him without ever coming back. But, how could she? What was she supposed to say to him?

Her flower was looking so pathetic in the window, as it drooped over, almost in a lowercase n shape. It would be dead soon anyway. There was no more point in taking care of that damn thing, but she dragged herself over to the window anyway, picking up the watering can and gave it some water. The water only dropped off the petals and into the soil below, the entire thing looking even more pathetic and only as though the water merely weighed it down instead of perking it up.

Morticia sighed, touching the side of the petals ever so gently with her nail. “Please don’t die.”

* * *

 

“Hey?”

There was a tiny, almost unheard knock on her door, but the voice roused her from sleep. Morticia didn’t remember falling asleep, but she awoke with her back pressed against the wrinkled sheets below her, facing up at her ceiling, and was aware that she’d been drooling her sleep at some point. Her glasses were plastered to her face, and as she sat up, felt gross all over as she pulled them from her face, wiping them on her shirt.

Roomie’s voice came from the other side of the door as he knocked again. “Are you okay?” His voice was hushed and quiet, as though fearing if he spoke any louder, he would bother her.

Morticia sighed to herself, but not loud enough where he could hear. “Yeah. I’m still feeling bad. Sorry.”

Her door quietly opened then, and Roomie poked his head through, giving her a concerned look as he did so. When he saw her there sitting up on her bed, probably looking exhausted in this state, as she sat cleaning her glasses on her shirt, he shifted nervously on his feet. “Um—Morty came by earlier.”

Her insides froze for a second.

“We came in and saw you sleeping, so he left. We figured you were still sick, but he was worried about you. He wanted to know how everything went at the registration office. Apparently, something went on in the lunchroom with you guys? He didn’t give me the details.”

She nodded, her stomach cramping at the mere mention of the place and how she had downed a half a bottle of ketchup earlier to ease the cramps that were bothering her now. Her stomach growled, as though to taunt her, and she wrapped her arm around herself to force it to stop making noise. “Y-yeah. But, it’s fine now.” And, as she thought of it, said, “Wh-when do you think you’ll get more junk food here?”

He shrugged. “Probably not for several days. The Morty I usually get it from hasn’t contacted me yet. I think he’s out of town, but he’ll be back. He doesn’t stay gone long. Why?”

She shook her head, trying not to rouse suspicion by the fact she was cradling her cramping stomach. “Just curious. I really liked those potato chips he gave us—the ones with cheese in them.” Of course they weren’t going to be getting any food for a while. _Of course_ everything was going to go wrong. Fucking of course.

Roomie arched his eyebrows at her. “So, what happened with you guys at the lunchroom?”

Morticia shook her head, wishing he would leave her alone at this point. She didn’t know what to say to him—let alone Morty. He was going to question her later, he was going to want to go out to eat, and try and drag her back to school at some point. She couldn't keep avoiding him forever. “Just problems with my card. Some glitch in the system or something—but I-I got it fixed.”

“Do you need medicine?”

As she looked up, she realized Roomie was staring at the way she had unconsciously balled her hands into fists to press them into her stomach—an effort to stop the cramps, and she quickly stopped, deciding instead to stand off the bed and straighten herself out. “Um—yeah, do we have any Tylenol or anything? My stomach’s hurting.” At least that wasn’t a lie. Pain medicine wasn’t going to do a damn thing for her. She needed a sandwich or something.

He nodded, still giving her a concerned look, but backed out of the room as she crossed the area to the door and made her way out with him. As Roomie headed to the opposite side of the hallway towards his bedroom, Morticia took the opportunity he was tucked away inside looking for medicine to raid the fridge again. Anything to make the cramping stop. It was getting to that point where she was desperate for something again—anything. And she spotted a jar of mustard in the side door she hadn’t seen earlier. Without pausing, she grabbed it and tipped the jar back, squirting a liberal amount in her mouth. The taste was fucking awful, and she almost spat it out the moment she did that, but she swallowed it down, her face scrunching up in disgust as she did so. She choked and coughed, placing the jar back in the door just as Roomie appeared around the corner and came to her side.

“Are you okay?” He held out the pain medicine for her as she struggled to contain her coughing and suppressed the urge to vomit up everything. It was a bad idea to do that, but she was desperate. She had no options at this point, other than to resort to stealing, but she couldn’t do that. There was no way she’d be able to get away with stealing from the cafeteria. The Ricks there watched the place like hawks, and even if she did get away with it, they’d catch her and boot her from the academy so fast, it’d give her whiplash.

“I’m fine.” She wiped her mouth, standing up straight before heading to the sink and pouring herself a glass of water from the tap. “Just got a little choked there.” Tossing the pills in her mouth, she took a huge gulp of water before tipping back and swallowing. Ugh. Everything felt so disgusting. And nothing was easing the cramping in her stomach. She never realized how much she took food for granted, but hell if Teacher wasn’t showing her what a fucking piece of shit she’d been all this time to take something like that for granted. She should have sat down a little longer with Morty at the table and enjoyed her meals more often. She should have savored the French fries and the lasagna, even if it looked fucking gross, it would have been better than nothing at all.

She was a piece of shit. This served her right, to have something like that taken away from her, just to show her how good she had it before.

Standing at the sink, she stared down at the drain for a while before pouring more tap water and drinking that to fill her stomach. It wasn’t making the pain go away, but she was pretending it did.

“You should go lie down. Get a little more rest.” Roomie was trying hard to think about her, but she knew he was pretty clueless when it came to stuff like this. He wasn’t as good at making her feel better like Morty was, but Morty went above and beyond, sometimes to the point it made her uncomfortable. She knew the instant she said this was Teacher’s doing, he would tear down the walls of that school to get at him and have his head for it—and she just couldn’t allow that.

She had to do something about this herself.

And—a thought flashed through her mind.

What if she just faced him? Rolled her sleeves up, put on her big girl panties, tore through his office door and demanded he stop this bullshit? If he was angry at her, that was fine, but she wasn’t going to get pushed around by him.

But, she shrank into herself at the idea of being alone with him again. She knew deep down she didn’t have the balls to actually go face him like that and demand anything from him. Hell, he’d probably laugh at her if she even attempted. She couldn’t see herself doing something like that. No. Facing him was out of the question.

Morticia sighed to herself again, setting her glass down in the sink to wash later before heading off to her room once again. She plopped down on her bed, her face landing in the pillow and closed her eyes. This was so fucked up—she wished her Rick would just come and take her off this miserable planet already.

She wished he would come save her. Save her from this insanity. Save her from Teacher’s insane twisted bullshit and take her out to eat at some fast food restaurant where she could eat to her heart’s content and savor every bite of a hamburger.

She wouldn’t take eating for granted anymore. Morticia would love every meal. She wouldn’t complain if Mom never let her eat dessert again, or made her eat boiled, unseasoned vegetables all the time. She would take it all in, she would eat whatever was given to her.

Her stomach cramped up at the thought of eating mashed potatoes again—the red ones. Her favorite. And she couldn’t help but let out a sob at the thought of it.

What was she going to do? The fuck was she going to do? Starve for the next several days while waiting this out? Avoid Morty because she didn’t have access to the cafeteria anymore? She couldn’t eat with him. There was no food at home.

She was stuck.

Her stomach churned and she felt nauseated all of a sudden.

Then, it hit her all at once. Morticia bolted off her bed and ran to the toilet when the nausea piled up, and she could feel it about to explode. She popped open the lid of the toilet bowl and vomited the entire contents of her stomach out into it. Clear liquid, along with the mustard and the pills floated in the water below her and she let out another sob of frustration. She wasn’t even allowed this. Not even the jars of condiments in the fridge were allowed.

Roomie knocked on the door, having appeared there at some point, asking if she was okay, but she just started crying again, her stomach emptied of everything she had put in it today. There was nothing left. Morticia had nothing left.

She hugged the bowl of the toilet, feeling another wave of nausea as she dry heaved into the bowl and choked, coughing and trying to gain her bearings as she rode out this feeling. Her tears blurred her vision, but all she could do was cry.


	6. Chapter 6

The walls of her room never felt so confining before. As Morticia lay curled up on the floor with her knees drawn to her chin, the only sound she could focus on was the occasional growl of her stomach. The hunger pangs came and went, but when they wanted to, they were a force to be reckoned with. Each time a cramp settled into the pit of her stomach, Morticia curled into herself even more, trying not to think of how bad it hurt, how dry her mouth was, and how good a giant plate of spaghetti sounded right now. Hell, any food sounded good right now. Just something to coat her stomach with.

Roomie had been leaving a lot more lately to go to the cafeteria, and in the two days she’d spent locked up in her room, could hear Morty ask about her through the door, but she refused to open it for him. She couldn’t face him. She just pretended she was sick. And throwing up like she’d done in front of Roomie only helped solidify her case to the point both boys were leaving her alone for the most part, but that didn’t mean Morty wasn’t worrying over her like he was so prone to do.

It was Wednesday, and she hadn’t eaten anything since that past Friday. Her stomach was growling for something—anything, and all she’d been able to get into her was soda and random condiments that were in the fridge. She sucked on ice cubes when she could, she downed as much water as she could to try and fake her stomach into thinking she was giving it something, but she couldn’t trick her body no matter what she did. So, she lay in the floor, staring at the posters on her wall of random super heroes she liked, and found herself wishing yet again that her Rick would come to save her.

There were so many moments she lay, trying to ignore the pain inside of her, trying to pretend nothing was wrong, and think about him. Fantasize about him barreling through her window in his ship and extending his hand out for her as she gladly took it and he took her off this godforsaken place. She fantasized about taking Morty with her, giving him a new home, and talking her family into adopting him. He could go to school with her, but it would be a normal school. With normal rules, normal homework, and normal ass fucking teachers who didn’t come onto their students. She wouldn’t have to worry about walking on eggshells all the time and could go back to the normal routine.

She closed her eyes, swallowing to wet her throat and thought about going to the kitchen for another soda. It was only making her stomach cramp that much more, because she wasn’t a soda drinker by any means, but it was sugar—it was something. And anything was good at this point. Anything would do.

But, she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling, wishing with every second that passed as she stared at it that the whole thing would crash down and Rick would come through. He would save her. He would have so much food in the ship with him because he knew she was hungry. He bought all her favorite chocolate cakes and cherry-flavored candies that she loved. He got McDonalds for her. So much fast food, all she could eat, and Morticia would sit in the passenger seat while he drove, while they picked up Morty and got the hell out of here, and she would eat. She would stuff her face full, until her stomach hurt from too much food at once, but she would continue eating, savoring every bite, every morsel, every scrap of food he got for her, and it would be so delicious.

Food was never this beautiful.

But.

That wasn’t going to happen. Rick wasn’t coming for her—she knew that. It’d been six months. What in the fuck was he doing for six months that he had left her here?

Had he…gotten another Morty?

Morticia shook her head. No. He wouldn’t trade her out like that. Her Rick was an asshole, a generic asshole just like the rest, but he didn’t hate her. She was sure of it. They’d been through too much together for him to drop her off and abandon her here.

But, there was still that little nagging voice in the back of her head, that little tiny, stupid fucking voice that told her—he was tired of her. He left her here on purpose and went about his business. He probably got a new Morty. One who was better suited for all those adventures he took her on. One who wouldn’t get in the way or get emotional and cry when something got scary, and one who didn’t complain to him when he kept her up too late because she had schoolwork.

Morticia sat up off the floor, rolling into herself as she did, as a pang shot through her, almost making her moan with how much it hurt.

Hungry.

She was so _hungry_.

Her mouth was watering, her throat was parched for something, and her stomach was growling as she stood from the floor and straightened herself out. Even her lips were dry as though she hadn’t had anything to drink in weeks, even though she’d been downing soda like crazy.

She opened the door and made her way into the kitchen. Roomie was gone. He was probably at the cafeteria. With one motion, she opened the fridge and pulled out a can of soda. Popping it open and tipping it, she drained the whole thing until the fizz made her choke.

Why was he doing this to her? Did Teacher hate her this much? Did he really expect to starve her because she rejected his advances on her? Did he really expect her to reciprocate and stay in the classroom with him that day?

She shivered at the thought once again—the scene that had been replaying itself over and over again like a mantra. It was invading her, poisoning her, and she couldn’t make it stop.

Was he really going to keep this up because she ran away from him? What did he want from her?

Morticia gripped the empty can, crushing it under her hand before tossing it in the trash. Once again, her stomach lurched when a pang shot through and she doubled over, tears coming to her face because she was so hungry. She just wanted something to eat. Something that wasn’t fucking ketchup and mustard. Something that wasn’t carbonated as all hell.

She gripped the counter until her knuckles turned white.

If she went to his office and demanded he take the hold off her card so she could get some food—would that really be such a bad idea? Every brain cell in her goddamn head was screaming at her yes, that was a terrible idea. He couldn’t be trusted. She couldn’t be alone with him in his office of all places—god no. If she faced him there, there was no telling what he would do.

But, she had to face him.

She couldn’t tell Morty. None of the counselors or anybody else gave a damn what happened to her—and they all did whatever Teacher told them to do. He had so much leeway there, it was ridiculous how he didn’t have the entire school under his finger at this point.

She clutched the edge of the counter harder, until she felt it digging into her palm. This urge to eat was too much.

And she didn’t have to do anything if she didn’t want to. If she cornered him in the classroom while there were still other people around, she might have a chance to call him out. If others were there, he wouldn’t dare try and touch her then.

Morticia bit her lip. She wouldn’t have fathomed going against him before, but—that was before she was starving. The hunger was controlling her now, and all she could think about was eating something. This was all his fault. No—this was _her_ fault. And she had to fix it.

Morticia was going to fix it.

Turning to the sink, she gripped the tap before twisting the water on and splashing her face with cold water. Class should be letting out soon. She wouldn’t want to interrupt his lecture or anything.

That would just be _rude_.

With her stomach growling at her, as though egging her on and demanding she go and do this, Morticia slowly sauntered over to the door before opening and locking herself out. The pain was a drive at this point.

She could do this.

She was going to face him and demand he stop fucking with her.

* * *

 

The school was eerily quiet when she made her way inside that day. Morticia purposefully walked as slowly as she could, turning what was usually a five-minute sprint into a slow fifteen minute walk. She walked with deliberate steps as though each step was a reminder of what she was doing. A tap onto the tiled floor, the echo it created in that giant ass entryway, was a voice telling her to be brave. The door closing behind her, the creek and groan it made—don’t back out. Don’t give into him. Don’t give him a fucking second to talk you into any— _fucking_ —thing.

The stairs that led up to the second floor. Her mouth watered at the thought of eating chicken fingers.

She clutched her hands into fists once again. The slow descent up the stairs was grueling on her as she had no energy at the moment. No food to fuel her, no energy to spare, and all she’d done since Friday was lie around and cry. Reaching the top was like an Olympic event, and she breathed heavy while feeling as though her heart was going to jump out of her chest. The hallway at the second floor seemed so devoid of anything. Noise, people, even the air felt too thick to breathe, but Morticia didn’t stop, even as she felt so winded reaching the top.

She reached his classroom. The door was ajar, and she could see him from where she stood. Even here, she watched as he tidied up papers on his desk, his hair was tied back in a ponytail like he did on occasions when he got passionate about a lecture, and she cringed at the sight of him—her instincts telling her to turn in the opposite direction and go screaming for help.

But, she pushed the door open, and he drew his face up to her, freezing the moment he laid eyes on her, and she watched him flinch back when she glared at him.

There was nobody else in the room. Maybe she had miscalculated when class let out, but it was no wonder the place was so empty, but she tried not to focus on that and instead pushed all the remaining energy she had into glaring at him from the doorway.

He opened his mouth, but all he got out was, “Mor—” Before she cut him off.

“Take the hold off my card. _Now_.” The way her voice croaked out like she hadn’t had anything to drink made her face flush at the sound of it. She knew it was because she had thrown up several times over the weekend, and it made her lose her voice, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to let that stop her from demanding this from him.

Instead of responding, Teacher straightened himself and held his hands up as though he were trying to calm down a raging animal that was about to tear through him. “Morti, just calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to _calm down_.” And she walked through the door, making damn sure it didn’t close behind her in case he came at her again—in case he forced himself on her. Everyone was going to hear if he tried to touch her. She would scream so loud if he so much as tried. “They told me you’re the one who blocked my card.”

The look on his face—she couldn’t even place it. But, he was guilty. Even at her blatant accusation, he stood there in front of her, not denying it, not even looking surprised as she said it to him, as she called him out, and he only swallowed, looked down, then looked back up at her. “I knew you wouldn’t come back.”

That was his fucking excuse? That’s why he blocked her card and fucking _starved_ her—so she would come crawling back to him? Angry tears were forming in her eyes, because that’s exactly what she had done. Her spine snapped and she was here right now, in front of him. She was the one who came crawling back to him. She tried to blink away the tears in her eyes as she spoke, but the more her words crawled out of her, the more frustrated she got. “S-so you decided to—to starve me?” She wiped her face, refusing to cry, but failing.

He frowned at her then. “Morti, don’t you think that’s a little dramatic? It’s only been two days.”

“I haven’t eaten since Friday.” And she said it so naturally, such a quick come back, just something to make him feel terrible for what he’d done, and he did.

He fucking did.

His eyes widened and it showed on his whole fucking stupid face that he didn’t expect that, and he looked guilty. She saw it. She saw that flash in his eyes where he was guilty. There was no denying it. “You… _nothing_?”

And she took the opportunity to glare back at him. She was going to say everything and anything to make him realize what a piece of shit he was. “Nothing.”

“Morti, I—” It was strange to watch him fumble over his words, as she watched him go through so many emotions in front of her, watched his pained expression.

Still, she didn’t let up. “Stop _saying my name_.” It wasn’t supposed to be coming from his mouth. That horrible sound was like agony to her every time he said it, every time he let it spew out as though it were second nature for him. It was disgusting. “Take the block off my card right now.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“You have to wait the whole seven days.”

“That’s _bullshit_ , you’re making it up!”

“I’m not.”

The tears had gathered to the point they fell and streaked down her face. Morticia wiped with her arm, wishing she wasn’t crying in front of him, wishing he wasn’t seeing how pathetic she was being right now, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t getting anything to eat today, or for the next four days. Turning her head to the side, her face flushed, she clenched her hands into fists before spitting out, “Fine,” and making to head out the door. She would think of something else then.

But.

“Morti, wait, I can feed you.”

She stopped, turning to face him again as he stood leaning forward against his desk, giving her a hard stare. Wiping at her face again, she only glared back at him. “Th-the fuck is your problem with me? A-are you trying to punish me or what?”

“I’m not punishing you. I’m trying to help you. If I had known you weren’t eating that whole time I wouldn’t have blocked the card.”

The image of him grabbing her arms and forcing himself onto her flashed through her mind and she took a step back. “I-is it because I failed?” They were falling, she was crying now and she couldn’t fucking stop as she started bawling her eyes out in front of him. “B-because I d-didn’t study properly? I’m sorry, okay. I’ll try harder.” She didn’t know why she was saying all these things, but she was frustrated with everything. And not eating for so long must have made her crazy, because she had come here in the first place, she was still here, and she was crying because she just wanted something to eat.

“It’s not that, okay?” He had moved from around the desk at some point, and she became aware of the fact he was standing right next to her. When he moved to reach out to her, as though to grip her shoulder, she flinched away from him.

“D-don’t touch me.”

“Morti, I have food in my office. I always keep some there so I can eat lunch in peace. I’ve got sweet things. Would you rather I cook something for you or—”

But, she didn’t even give him a chance to finish that sentence. “I’m _not_ going into your office.”

“You have to eat something.”

Her stomach growled, as though in agreement, and she reached down to hug onto herself to try and make it so he couldn’t hear it, but there was no way he didn’t hear it. “I’ll wait it out.”

“You can’t. Don’t do this to yourself. I promise I won’t hurt you. You don’t have to be scared of me, okay? I’m only going to feed you and once you’ve eaten, you can go do whatever you please.”

The thought of food was so tantalizing, but for all she knew, he was going to lace it with drugs and fuck her up. Or maybe he’d poison it and kill her. Hell, she didn’t even know anymore. Though, she kind of doubted Teacher wanted to kill her, it didn’t make much sense, but she had no reason to trust the bastard after what he did.

When she looked up at him, glaring at him again and hugging her stomach, he gave her a soft smile. Why hadn’t she run away yet? She wasn’t even supposed to be here, talking to him, letting him tempt her with the thought of feeding her, but—

“I’ve got spaghetti. That’s your favorite, right?”

Her mouth watered at the idea of chugging down spaghetti. Ignoring the fact he knew what her favorite food was, her face gushed with heat when she thought of stuffing it with food. Just a little. Just a few noodles and sauce, and she would run the fuck out of there and she could wait for the rest of the week for the block to go off her card and then everything would be normal again.

Just one meal.

It wouldn’t hurt.

With her stomach growling in protest, another pang shooting through that caused her to double over until she felt like she was sweating, Morticia bit her bottom lip until that was painful too. It was too much to bear at this point. She couldn’t hold out much longer. Not when she was shaking and weak, absolutely famished for something. “F-fine. A little spaghetti.”

He perked right the fuck up then. Reaching out as though to take her arm and lead her, she flinched back from him yet again, ripping her arm away from his fingers and hugging into herself.

“Don’t _touch_ me.”

But he laughed, one of those small contented laughs as he made his way through the doorway and down the hall. Morticia followed, still hugging herself, glaring at him the entire way they walked down the hall and up the stairs. His office was on the floor above them, and she tried to pretend the walk up the stairs wasn’t taxing on her—even though she wanted him to feel as guilty as possible for doing this to her, another part of her also didn’t want to let him see her so weak. It was stupid, and she was winded again as they made it to the top and were soon in front of his office.

He led her inside, and she hugged her arms like she was cold, as she started shaking. It wasn’t like she’d never been in his office before, so she wasn’t impressed by how lavish it was. Way too big and posh, with a bigass bookshelf stationed behind his desk. He even had a couch and coffee table set off to the side for students to talk about classes with. At least, that’s what she’d done when she first came here. She remembered sitting on that couch the first day here, having him explain the rules to her and tell her what classes she’d be taking as she shrank away in her seat, feeling so intimidated by him.

She never imagined she would wind up back in here, because he was starving her, and looking so happy as he reached for a minifridge and pulled out what looked to be a tiny block, like a lego block, before he placed it in a microwave-like device and in an instant, it produced a full plate of spaghetti. He held it out to her, and her mouth watered at the sight of the steam coming off it, at the smell that rode up her nostrils the moment he gave it to her.

She took the plate without hesitation and almost dug at it with her hands, feeling drool dribble down her chin, but she didn’t care. She grabbed the fork he supplied her with and went at it like an animal. Standing in place, she shoveled it down her throat like it was her lifeline, like if she didn’t eat it as fast as possible, it would disappear from her hands.

And holy fuck.

Was it _wonderful_.

The pit in her stomach that had been cramping the past few days cramped harder as she shoved so much in at once, and Teacher reached out for her, only causing her to shrink back and hug the food as though he were going to take it away from her. “Morti, wait—don’t eat so fast, you’ll get sick.”

But, she didn’t listen to him. Turning away from him, she ignored the look on his face—that guilty look again, as she jammed the food down her throat, choking when she forgot to chew it, and continued to eat. It was like nothing she’d ever eaten before. Spaghetti had never tasted this good before. It was gourmet—it was like some alien shit she’d never had before that tasted twenty times better than anything she’d ever shoved in her mouth back at home. It had so much flavor, so much of everything. She couldn’t get enough.

The plate was licked clean before she got to enjoy it all. Even having eaten a whole plate of spaghetti, her stomach was in pain, it was like she hadn’t eaten anything at all. She looked up at Teacher, feeling how wide her eyes were just from that, just from the thought of more food he had.

“M-more…” She was like an animal, an insatiable animal. She couldn’t get enough. And who was to say this wouldn’t be the last time she got to eat for the next few days? This might be her last meal for those four days the card was blocked.

Teacher only shook his head. “No, you’re going to get sick.”

“Give me more right now.” She was begging him, she knew she was being pathetic, but she didn’t care. Her stomach was hurting too much, and she was still so hungry. It was insane how bad it was, and maybe something was wrong with her. The fact she hadn’t eaten in so long was what was wrong with her. She knew that. “Please…” She pleaded with him, knowing this was low for her, knowing it was desperate and stupid, and she was awful for doing it.

But, it tasted so good. Maybe he did lace it with something. Maybe he put something in it so that she craved more of it. Or maybe she was more famished than she thought.

“Morti, you’re just going to throw it up if I give you anything else.”

“Please…” Tears filled her eyes again and she wiped at her face, trying not to cry, but it was impossible now. “I’m hungry.”

“I know, but it’ll be okay. I tried to warn you not to eat so fast. You needed to give your stomach time to settle with it.”

As her stomach cramped and balled into a knot, Morticia cried. She stood there in his office and cried like a baby, like a child at being denied food like this. Wanting more but being told no. Even after scarfing down a whole plate of food like an animal, she was hungry. She just wanted more. Why would he be this cruel to her and deny her that? Why was he doing this in the first place? Did he hate her that much? Was he trying to torture her? Was it punishment for flunking out of his class so hard? Maybe he punished all the students like this when they failed—he just took the food away until they studied harder.

Morticia choked on a sob, curling into herself as the knots only balled into her stomach more, and as she wiped at her face with her arm yet again, angry at herself for crying so much, she realized Teacher had come to her side at some point. The material of his robes brushed the side of her arm, and she felt the unmistakable feeling of his arms wrapping around her when he pulled her into him.

And then his voice, so misleadingly gentle until it made her want to vomit. “Don’t cry, Morti. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“G-get off me.” Her heart began to pound in her chest at the feeling of him clinging to her like this, but he didn’t listen. If anything, he only tightened his grip, until she felt suffocated.

He ignored her words. “If you come back here every day, I’ll feed you the best food. You don’t even have to go back to that shitty cafeteria anymore. I would never let you starve; that wasn’t my intention. I’m sorry you suffered so much.”

She pushed at him, trying to get him off her. She didn’t like how close he was, how far up against him she was now that he was pressed right against her. Even through his robes, she could feel him. Feel the flat of his stomach against her and the front of his chest. She pushed, trying to put distance between herself and—that. “I told you not to touch me—”

“I can’t help it.” When he cut her off so suddenly, his words made her freeze. There was an unmistakable breathiness to his voice, and she didn’t like it at all. But, he kept talking, he kept holding onto her, he reached up behind her to cup the back of her head with his hand. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to have you here in my office? Do you know how long I sat there in class just staring at you—thinking about you—wishing I could steal you away after class and bring you back here—all to myself? I know you didn’t. You were always off in your own world, but I can’t blame you for that.”

That terrible feeling crept further into her stomach, but it wasn’t from the hunger this time. The cramps had settled down, but she seized up at the feeling of him touching her like this—and the sound of his voice.

And she was so stupid to have come here. To believe he would only offer her food and let her go. Her voice was weirdly high-pitched when she spoke, the terror gripping her until she thought she would throw up from that. “Y-you said—you said I could leave a-after you gave me food.” And she couldn’t move, not after feeling his fingers run through her hair as he stroked her.

“I know what I said.” Still, there was that strange breathy tone to his voice, and it terrified her.

“S-so stop touching me.”

She didn’t expect him to pull back then, but when he did, she almost wished he hadn’t. His face—his fucking face—made her want to throw up again. His eyes were lidded, and there was a tinge of blush coating his cheeks. He gripped her arms, refusing to let go. “You’re so beautiful, Morti.”

She pushed at him, a sob clawing its way from her throat as she turned, trying to wrench herself from his grip, but that moment he took to pull away and look at her was short lived when he only gripped her back again, wrapping his arms around her where she couldn’t escape.

“Wh-what the fuck do you want from me?” Her voice was shaking, her arms held down at her sides from where he was holding her, and she couldn’t push him off anymore. She hated the way he looked exactly like her Rick—sounded like her Rick—it made her shake and she almost started crying again.

“I want you to calm down, Morti. I’m not going to hurt you.” He let out a small laugh, but it did absolutely nothing to comfort her.

“D-do you—do you do this with all your students then?” She couldn’t control the shaking of her voice for the life of her, but she was trapped in his hold, as he stroked her hair again, and moved his face where she swore she heard him sniff her. It sickened her. “Y-you starve them wh-when they don’t pass your class a-a-and then y-you—you touch them without permission?”

“I wouldn’t do this with anyone else.” Then, he let out a sigh, before tightening his hold on her. “Only you.”

“Why?” It was a simple question, one she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer to honestly.

But, he pulled back on her again, releasing the hug where he was gripping her by the side of her arms, still refusing to let her go, and his smile dropped into a serious frown as his lidded eyes refused to make eye contact with her then, but there was no denying the blush on his face. Then, he looked up at her, with the most sincere expression she’d ever seen from him.

“Because I love you.”

And she stopped.

Morticia stopped moving completely. She was sure she stopped breathing even, and couldn’t feel the cramps in her stomach. She couldn’t feel his fingers digging into her arm, she couldn’t feel her legs as they turned to jelly, and she wobbled in his hold.

She wanted to laugh—wanted to force the sound out of her mouth as hard as she could—but nothing came out. There was no sound. There was no feeling, no noise whatsoever.

Because, there was no way she’d heard him right. The hunger had fucked up her sense of hearing as well. She was going deaf or something, that had to be it. Morticia was so fucked up she was hallucinating. She was actually starving on the floor of her bedroom and probably having some fucked up dream while passed out on her floor. Maybe she’d taken too many pain pills. Can you hallucinate on those? Probably not, but that had to be the reason.

Because, this wasn’t real.

Teacher didn’t just say that.

But, he was staring at her expectedly, as though waiting for her to respond back, like he was waiting for her to say it back to him. She wanted to lie to herself and say it wasn’t that kind of love. He meant the platonic kind. Like that kind of love you’re obligated to have because you’re family. Like the way her mom and dad loved her.

That was wishful thinking. She saw the way he looked at her—was looking at her. The same way Morty looked at her, as he stared at her across the lunch table when they ate dinner sometimes, with that faraway look on his face. As a gentle smile played on his face—it was the same look Teacher was giving her right now.

 _That_ kind of love.

She swallowed, and almost choked on it. Without even realizing it, she felt the tears come down her face, streaking her cheeks, but she couldn’t move. “Y-y-you’re insane. I-I-I’m your…” She couldn’t finish it.

“You’re my what? My granddaughter technically? Doesn’t change the fact I love you.” The more he said it, the more she wanted to throw up. The more she realized she couldn’t move and couldn’t stop staring at his face in absolute horror. How could he be so casual about it? How could he say that with a straight face like nothing was wrong?

This wasn’t happening.

“Y-you’re a fucking…” Whatever insult she had, she couldn’t get it out. Morticia was in so much shock, she couldn’t even process what was happening all at once. It was too much. This was too much.

But, Teacher was insistent. “You don’t have to be shy about it, Morti. It’s okay. You know, Ricks and Mortys do it all the time, it’s not really a big deal.” He gave her a smirk. “I bet you did it with your Rick all the time, right?”

“I didn’t do _anything_ with him. Don’t fucking talk about him like that.” Her face gushed with heat at the mention of her Rick, and she glared at him, pushing at him when she finally got the feeling back in her limbs. “He’s not a fucking freak like you are.”

“Sweetie, every Rick you’ve ever met is a freak.”

The heat only radiated off her face even more. “My Rick never did anything like that to me.”

Teacher frowned at her then, refusing to let go of her, even as she struggled in his arms. “Then, he was a fucking dumbass. I mean, look at you. You’re a _Morticia_. Who wouldn’t want to fuck you?”

Her eyes widened at how blunt he was being and she choked on a gasp at the look on his face when he mentioned fucking her. But, he immediately drew back from her.

“I-I’m not saying, that you know. Just because of that that’s why-- I-I mean.” He was fumbling. Teacher fumbled over his words, and it was fucking disgusting to see him backtracking his words like this. He insulted her one minute and was immediately trying to cover it up the next. “I’m not like that. I’m not saying you’re like a trophy or anything. It’s just there’s some Ricks out there who don’t know how to treat you.”

“Like you.” She spat back at him, glaring at him again, kind of liking the way he was struggling with his words around her.

“Come on, Morti, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I don’t care what way you _meant_ it.” She was getting heated, way too many emotions taking hold of her at once. She was angry at him for starving her, frustrated at herself for coming here, terrified at him touching her like this, even angrier at him for having the goddamn nerve to mention her Rick like that—and she just stared him straight in the eye. “I never knew you were a fucking pervert.”

And it actually made him shrink back. It looked like she’d struck a nerve with him, and he looked off to the side, biting his lip, still gripping her arms, and he began to shake. “I…” Whatever he was going to say, he trailed off, as he continued shaking, but still he held onto her.

Morticia was about to take the moment to wrestle his hands off her, but he looked back up at her suddenly, again with that confusing, but sincere look on his face.

“Morti, I love you. I promise I do.” And then, he moved into her, pressing his body right up against her when he wrapped one of his arms around her, tugging her in close. “I love you so much. I’ve loved you from the day you first came here.”

“Stop _saying_ that.” She felt it when his opposite hand, the one that wasn’t trapping her against his body, cupped the back of her head, only for him to trail down her spine with his fingers, until she felt him stop right at the dip of her back. His fingers were dangerously close to the top of her skirt, and she felt it when he dragged his fingers over the side of her hips. “Y-you don’t love me. Y-you’re just gross.”

“No, I do, Morti. I want you to know how serious I am.”

He pressed her into him tighter when his opposite hand dragged to the hem of her skirt, and she let out a gasp at the feeling of him pulling it up, until she felt the cold hit the back of her underside. She shoved against him, trying to get out of his hold, but he wasn’t letting up. “N-no, Teacher, don’t…” A gasp choked out when he grabbed her ass, and she jumped at the feeling, not meaning to grip his robes when he did so, and he laughed at her.

“You’re so shy, but you don’t have to be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her heart thumped in her chest when it slowly dawned on her just where this was going.

He wasn’t actually going to fuck her, was he? All the creepy talk from before—that was just talk. He wouldn’t actually force himself on her like this. She tried to wriggle from his hold again, only to be pulled in closer by him as she felt his fingers grip the edge of her panties from under her skirt.

“You were always a good student too. I know you think you’re not, but you never caused any trouble, you never talked during lessons. You got me up in the morning sometimes—because I knew I’d get to see you.”

“Let me go.” She pushed against him, when she felt his hand grip her panties, and he pulled the elastic back, just ever so gently, and she was panicking. “I-I have t-t-to go home.”

“But it’s okay now.” He ignored her, he flat out ignored her protests as he worked his hand into her panties, and she felt his palm against her bare ass. She seized up at the feeling, trying to twist in his hold and get out from under him, but he wouldn’t let her go. “I can pass you easily. I won’t let you wind up on the streets, or with a Rick who’s going to mistreat you. I love you so much, Morti. I want you to know that everything’s going to be okay now.” His words only made her shiver, and she couldn’t help when the tears came pouring out.

She cried. With his hand down her pants, grabbing portions of her skin and squeezing lewdly, she cried, and he must have heard her sniffling, where she couldn’t wipe her face because he had her arms held down, where she couldn’t save herself.

He pulled away from her, removing his hand from her panties and drew back to look at her. “Morti, don’t be scared.”

“I…” She swallowed, her voice shaking, her entire body shaking as she stood trapped in his arms, hating the way his voice sounded. So gentle and misleading. _He was going to hurt her_. “I-I’ve never had sex.” She was scared. Fucking terrified as she stood shaking.

“That’s okay.”

Her sob caught in her throat and she choked on it. “I-I’ve never seen…” She bit her lip. “I don’t know what—what it looks like.” The heat came to her face as she admitted this. Hoping that—maybe if she admitted that, he would stop. He would realize how fucked up this was and let her go. She would never have to see this awful place again and Rick would come save her. He would crash through the ceiling and save her.

Teacher’s eyes widened and she felt the blush creep on her face. “You’ve got a computer, right? Surely you’ve looked up dicks on the internet.”

Her face couldn’t have been redder. “That’s not…” She started shaking again, wishing she could shrink down and hide into a crevice away from him. Wishing she had just stayed back at the dorm and never come here. Why did she have to give into her hunger and face him?

This was her fault.

“I know it’s not the same as the real thing, but Morti.” He smiled, taking his hand and trailing it down her arm until he cupped her hand in his, his eyes lidded and the blush more apparent on his face than ever. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to make you touch me. We’ll wait until you’re ready, okay?”

She just pulled her hand back to herself, as though she’d touched a hot stove. “I-I don’t _want_ this.”

“You’re just shy about it. It’s okay. You’ve never had sex, but I’ll teach you. It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

Her heart felt like it was going to thump straight from her chest at the fact he just admitted that. He was going to fuck her.

She started shaking even harder.

Holy shit, he was actually going to fuck her.

“T-Teacher, I don’t want this.” She tried to push against him, but he held onto her.

He smiled, before tugging her in close. “It’s okay to be nervous. Everybody’s nervous their first time.”

“I’m saying no. I’m telling you no.” It didn’t matter what she said, Teacher wasn’t going to listen to her. He continued doing whatever he pleased, and when he moved her back into him, she felt his hot breath on the nape of her neck, and froze when he put his mouth against her.

But, she quickly gave him a hard shove. “ _STOP_ IT! I SAID NO!”

“Shh.”

Holy fuck, he was going to do it.

Morticia thrashed back and forth in his arms, but he only kissed the side of her neck one more time, before she felt his fingers dig back down into her panties. When she moved against him again, he pulled her head so far against him, she was dug into the front of his chest, squishing her glasses against her face. Turning her head to the side, she let out a gasp when she felt his fingers brush against her clit, and she pushed her legs together, trying to stop him. It didn’t stop him—she felt the pad of his finger press down against her and it made her jump in his arms.

She was panicking. “T-Teacher, don’t do this. I-I don’t want this.” She was scared.

“It’s okay, Morti. I’ve told you before, I’m not going to hurt you. I love you.”

But, she was crying again, as he fingered her, as she felt those horrible feelings creep up inside of her, the feelings she was used to only when she was lonely at night—when she was thinking about Morty. When she was back at home, and had a crush on Jessica. It wasn’t supposed to be him.

He wasn’t supposed to be doing this. He wasn’t supposed to be giving her that same feeling when she thought about Morty—when she was alone in her room, when she did this to herself—this wasn’t supposed to be him. Morticia bit back a sob again as she tried to push him off. “T-Teacher, don’t do it.”

“Don’t be scared, Morti.”

She just sobbed harder, the more he fingered her, the more he was making her wriggle in his arms. The higher that feeling was creeping. It scared her—the fact this felt good, it scared her. She wanted to throw up, she wanted to get rid of that feeling forever, she wanted to throw up all the food he had given her and run away. Run back to her dorm and curl up in the floor where she would starve.

Why did she have to give in?

It would have been better.

She wouldn’t have done this.

She tried to reach down to his arm and grab his wrist, to pull him off her. “T-Teacher—” If he did this—she wanted to save herself for Morty. She wanted _him_ to be the one kissing her, telling her he loved her—she wanted him to be the one to give her that look while he stared at her with lidded eyes, while he straddled her and they did it somewhere romantic like out on the beach or in her bed after she’d clung to him during a scary movie.

She didn’t want him to be the one doing this.

When she said his name, she felt it when he pressed into her then—when he grew hard against her, and she choked on a gasp at the feeling of it.

“It’s okay, Morti.”

No, it wasn’t _fucking okay_.

He was going to fuck her. Teacher was actually going to force himself on her, and she could feel his erection pressing into her like that—holy fuck, he was doing it. He was going to hold her down and fuck her.

She panicked—and shoved him—hard. As hard as she could, until he stumbled. But it was only enough that he lost his footing for a moment, let go of the area between her legs, and she didn’t even have a chance to thrash out of his hold before he was gripping her arms on either side, holding her down.

“Morti, calm down!”

But, she wasn’t listening. Morticia was straight up panicking, moving back and forth, trying to use sheer force to rip herself out of his arms—because there was no way he was actually going to fuck her.

“NO! NO, NO! DON’T DO THIS TO ME!” She was sobbing, her vision blurred by her tears as she sobbed, horrified noises crawling their way from her throat and filling the air as she let her fear take hold of her with every passing second. “PLEASE, T-TEACHER, DON’T—I’M SORRY, I’M _SORRY_!”

He suddenly wrapped his arms around her again then, pulling her so tight up against him, Morticia couldn’t breathe. He sank to the ground, bringing her with him, and there was no way she could pull herself back up. In his arms, he held her close, suffocating her, shushing her like he was trying to calm down a crying child, and he rocked her back and forth in his lap.

She tried to suck in air, but she couldn’t. He was squeezing her too tight and Morticia was sure she saw black in her vision for a few seconds when she couldn’t get any oxygen.

“Shh.” He only ever shushed her gently, while he rocked back and forth, cupping the back of her head as he ran his fingers through strands of her hair. “Don’t be scared, Morti.”

“Please.” Her voice had all but left her, and was now little more than a hiccup as she forced it out, not able to move at all in his arms. “ _Please_ don’t do this. I-I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry I wasn’t a better student.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The tears fell, blurring her vision. “Y-you are. You’re hurting me right now.”

“I love you, Morti.”

Nothing she said was going to get to him. He was going to do whatever he wanted with her, despite her begging him, pleading with him not to. Even as she sat in his lap, being rocked back and forth, he was still doing this, even as she cried and couldn’t stop—he was still doing this.

He pulled away from her, smiling at her, that same gentle smile as he had before, the blush on his face. When he reached up to cup the side of her face, he used his thumb to brush away the tear streak on her cheek. “You’re scared it’s going to hurt when I go inside of you, right?”

She didn’t even answer. The fact he could just—say that? That way. How could he say that. Morticia tried to pull away from his hand, but she couldn’t look away from his face, at that expression.

He lowered his voice then, moving his hand from her face back down to her skirt. “I won’t then.”

She didn’t dare move, not even as he reached back into her panties and continued fingering her. All she did was flinch uncomfortably as he touched her clit once more.

“I’ll let you get used to it before I do that.”

Before he does that.

Before he goes inside of her.

What the fuck did he mean by that?

She squirmed in his hold again, but he used his opposite arm to wrap around her and hold her close, kissing the top of her forehead as he did so. Morticia tried to shove him when he did that—not wanting him to put his mouth against her anymore, but he laughed. That same soft laugh he’d been doing the whole time she was with him.

“You’re going to get used to it, Morti. I wouldn’t just go inside without preparing you. That _would_ hurt.”

“You’re insane.” She gripped the front of his robes, wriggling the more he touched her, the higher that feeling was climbing. If he kept this up, she was going to come. “You’re fucking insane. You said all y-you would do w-was let me eat and I-I could leave.”

“I can’t help it.” He moved into her, forcing his head into the crook of her neck, despite how she moved away from him. “It’s not every day I have you in my office.”

“It’ll be the last f-fucking time.”

“You’re the one who came to me, as I recall.”

“I was hungry.”

Then, he pulled back, frowning at her, as he increased his rhythm and rubbed her harder. It only made her flinch back—it didn’t feel good when he did that.

“And do you think one meal is going to satisfy you the whole time you’re here?”

“It’ll get me th-through the week until the block goes off.”

“I can block it again.”

She froze, her entire insides feeling as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice inside of her as she watched him smile at her, though it was no longer the softer one he was sporting earlier, but a more sinister one. She clenched his robes in her hands, until her nails dug into her palms. “Wh-why would you do that. Why would you starve me like that.” She could even ask it like a question, but demand it.

“I’m trying to help you, Morti. You don’t need that shitty cafeteria food. Hell, I can give you the best gourmet shit the Citadel could offer you. You can come in here every day and eat with me. I’ll give you all you want.” He pulled her in close, moving into her neck once again where he kissed the side.

She shrank away from him. “I-I don’t want to.”

“You’ll have to at some point.”

Morticia tried to swallow her sob, but it choked its way out. “Why are you doing this to me.”

“Because I love you.”

“That’s a fucked up way of showing it.”

“You just don’t understand yet.”

He took the hand he wasn’t holding her with and removed it from her panties, before he moved it to his own pants, and she watched in horror as he unzipped his pants. He tugged his erection free and Morticia turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t have to see it, the blush coating her face when he laughed at her.

“I forgot you’ve never seen one before. It’s impressive, right?”

“How would I know?” She tensed when he moved his hand down and began to pump himself. “Y-you said you weren’t—”

“I’m _not_.” He interrupted before she could even finish and she continued looked away from him, trying to focus on the designs in his carpet instead. “But, I can’t help it, Morti. You don’t know what you do to me. I do this every night to the thought of you. Every night.”

His words made her sick, and she wished she could have gotten sick all over him. This fucking piece of shit—how could someone be so disgusting?

“You’re so beautiful.”

She cringed at his words, but refused to look at him, the heat on her face even stronger with the gross noise he was making as he pumped himself.

“I know what I said before, but—Morti.” He grunted when he pumped. “I need you to touch me.”

Her reply was instant. “No.”

“It’s not hard. Well, I meant that in the sense it’s not difficult.”

“Fuck you.”

He let out a laugh before he stopped pumping himself and reached over to grab her hand. The moment he touched her, she drew back into herself, cradling herself where he couldn’t take her hand anymore.

Then, he gave her a pleading look. “Come on, Morti. I’ll teach you how to do it.”

“I don’t want to know _how_ to do it, you piece of shit.” Her cheeks were gushing heat, and she glared at him. “Y-you said you weren’t going to do that. You lied to me.”

“I know, but—” He bit his lip then, and she saw the red on his face when he looked at her. “You don’t understand how hard it is for me not to fuck you right now.”

She froze.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Please, Morti. Do this for me, and I’ll give you some food to take home with you. Whatever you want, you can pick it out of the fridge. You can take as much as you like, even if it’s all cake.”

Her mouth watered at the idea of eating cake all night long—but she bit her lip. He was bribing her, it was as simple as that. And she glanced down at his erection, trying not to focus on how fucked up it looked. Did all dicks look like this? It was so gross. She hadn’t even seen Morty’s, but—maybe it was because Teacher was older. She didn’t know. She felt stupid for even thinking things like this, but she looked off to the side, before focusing back on that pattern in the floor.

She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “I-I’ll do it if you take the block off my card.” That was a fair compromise—that was more than fair.

“I’m not doing that.”

She glared back up at him. “Then, go fuck yourself.”

“Morti.” He moved, and when he did, grinded that thing right up against her thigh, and she gasped when he did—when he touched her with it. “I’m either going to fuck you right now or you can touch me. It’s your choice.”

She shrank under his gaze. He wasn’t glaring at her, but giving her a hard, expectant stare. And she started shaking. If she didn’t do this, he was going to hold her down and push that thing into her. And it was going to hurt.

The fear piled into her stomach.

It would hurt. She knew it, just from the sight of it—he was going to rip her to shreds.

She started crying, not meaning to. The tears fell, but she didn’t make a sound. And as he reached up to wipe her face, he shushed her again. “Morti, don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to help you.”

She didn’t move when he grabbed her hand this time, when he laced his fingers in between hers and squeezed, when he pulled her hand to his face and kissed her knuckles, before guiding her hand down to his crotch.

“Wrap your hand around it.”

She did as she was told, and the moment she did, he let out a grunt, and thrust into her hand. Morticia wanted to pull away out of instinct, but he kept his grip on her wrist.

“ _Fuck_ , Morti—I-I didn’t think you’d get me this bad, but you do.” He let out a laugh, guiding her hand down his erection and grunting as she gripped him. “That’s it, keep going. Just like that. You’re doing so good.”

Morticia tried to focus on that spot on the floor, tried to find shapes in the patterns, pictures like looking at the clouds. She couldn’t find anything.

“Keep going.” He released her hand then, and she pumped him herself, as he dug his hand back down in her panties and touched her clit. She flinched at the feeling, that feeling he had created and kept leaving—but now it was back, and she was close already. He was going to make her come.

Her hands started shaking as she gripped him up and down, doing everything she could not to look at him. The arm he had wrapped around her shoulders he used to pull her in close and he kissed the side of her head.

“You’re so good, Morti. I love you.”

Morticia tried not to sniffle, but there was no mistaking the sound catching in her throat.

This was all her fault.

It was her fault Teacher was thrusting up into her hand, moaning each time she pumped him—each time she did this. It was her fault he was breathing heavy next to her, matching the rhythm and thrusting in time with her, each time she went down, he would thrust up, and pull out of her grip when she’d go back up.

His fingers rubbed circles on her clit and she tried so hard not to give into that feeling—but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop from reaching her peak and felt orgasm take her, a familiar feeling, but also a terrible one, because he was the one who did this.

She didn’t want to move into him when he did that, but she did. She thrust her hips forward to try and get him to rub her harder, and he did. When she spasmed backward, she let out an uncontrollable moan at the feeling, her face gushed red from the heat, and felt like she’d blacked out in that moment.

When she did, he let go. Teacher came into her hand, and she came down from her orgasm fast when his cum spurted into her hand, causing her to reel backward and she would have crawled away from him if he hadn’t been holding her into his lap.

He pulled her close to him, and hugged onto her again. “Morti…” His voice was low and raspy as he held her close. “God, Morti, I love you. I love you so much. Y-you’re gonna be okay now. I promise everything’s going to be okay.”

She couldn’t move in his hold. She just waited for him to come down and let her go.

It felt like hours she sat there being hugged in his lap, but he finally let go of her, pulling her from his lap and standing from the floor and zipping his pants. She stood along with him, not looking at him, feeling disgusting with the cum on her hands, but he spoke up.

“My bathroom’s over there. You can—um—wash yourself.”

She didn’t waste another second before washing that shit off her hands. But, that wasn’t going to be enough. It wouldn’t be until she got back to her dorm that she planned to take a long shower to get this gross feeling off her.

When she stepped from the bathroom, he was waiting for her. And he held out a bag for her to take, full of those tiny lego food things. He smiled at her as she approached. “All you have to do is microwave them and you’ll have a meal. I put cakes and candy in there too.”

She stared at the bag, then back at him, at his stupid dumb smile.

He pulled the bag back toward him when she didn’t grab for it immediately. “You don’t want it?”

She shook her head, reaching out and snatched the bag from him. If those things made as much of a meal as he said, maybe she could get away with eating stuff in the dorm for the next week. Not like she planned to come the fuck back here. She just wanted to go back to her dorm and shower, get this disgusting feeling off her.

She didn’t have a choice, as he’d told her he would fuck her if she didn’t touch him, but Morticia still felt like she’d sold out. Giving into him just for food. Just coming here because she was too hungry and weak to take it anymore. She’d given in. This was her fault.

This was all her fault.

This stupid bag of food wasn’t worth it, but she gripped it, making to head towards the door, and gripped the door handle.

“Morti?”

The sound of his voice made her freeze and she turned to look at him, her stomach cramping at the thought he was stopping her to keep her here for even longer.

But, he smiled at her. “I love you, Morti.”

Instead of replying, she ripped open the door and slammed it closed behind her.


End file.
